to St. Peter's
Church. Tom Collin is of opinion that the Miss Dickenses has growed two
fine young women--leastwise, asking pardon, ladies. An evangelical
family of most disagreeable girls prowl about here and trip people up
with tracts, which they put in the paths with stones upon them to keep
them from blowing away. Charles Collins and I having seen a bill
yesterday--about a mesmeric young lady who did feats, one of which was
set forth in the bill, in a line by itself, as

THE RIGID LEGS,

--were overpowered with curiosity, and resolved to go. It came off in
the Assembly Room, now more exquisitely desolate than words can
describe. Eighteen shillings was the "take." Behind a screen among the
company, we heard mysterious gurglings of water before the entertainment
began, and then a slippery sound which occasioned me to whisper C. C.
(who laughed in the most ridiculous manner), "Soap." It proved to be the
young lady washing herself. She must have been wonderfully dirty, for
she took a world of trouble, and didn't come out clean after all--in a
wretched dirty muslin frock, with blue ribbons. She was the alleged
mesmeriser, and a boy who distributed bills the alleged mesmerised. It
was a most preposterous imposition, but more ludicrous than any poor
sight I ever saw. The boy is clearly out of pantomime, and when he
pretended to be in the mesmeric state, made the company back by going
in among them head over heels, backwards, half-a-dozen times, in a most
insupportable way. The pianist had struck; and the manner in which the
lecturer implored "some lady" to play a "polker," and the manner in
which no lady would; and in which the few ladies who were there sat with
their hats on, and the elastic under their chins, as if it were going to
blow, is never to be forgotten. I have been writing all the morning, and
am going for a walk to Ramsgate. This is a beast of a letter, but I am
not well, and have been addling my head.

Ever, dear Girls, your affectionate Father.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Friday Night, Sept. 16th, 1859._

MY DEAR WILKIE,

Just a word to say that I have received yours, and that I look forward
to the reunion on Thursday, when I hope to have the satisfaction of
recounting to you the plot of a play that has been laid before me for
commen