ed, and the like; finally left the
number in a blank envelope, and did not add the address to it until it
would have been absurd to send you such stale bread. This was my fault,
but this was all. And I should be so pained at heart if you supposed me
capable of failing in my truth and cordiality, or in the warm
remembrance of the time we have passed together, that perhaps I make
more of it than you meant to do.

My sailor-boy is at home--I was going to write, for the holidays, but I
suppose I must substitute "on leave." Under the new regulations, he must
not pass out of the _Britannia_ before December. The younger boys are
all at school, and coming home this week for the holidays. Mary keeps
house, of course, and Katie and her husband surprised us yesterday, and
are here now. Charley is holiday-making at Guernsey and Jersey. He has
been for some time seeking a partnership in business, and has not yet
found one. The matter is in the hands of Mr. Bates, the managing partner
in Barings' house, and seems as slow a matter to adjust itself as ever I
looked on at. Georgina is, as usual, the general friend and confidante
and factotum of the whole party.

Your present correspondent read at St. James's Hall in the beginning of
the season, to perfectly astounding audiences; but finding that fatigue
and excitement very difficult to manage in conjunction with a story,
deemed it prudent to leave off reading in high tide and mid-career, the
rather by reason of something like neuralgia in the face. At the end of
October I begin again; and if you are at Brighton in November, I shall
try to see you there. I deliver myself up to Mr. Arthur Smith, and I
know it is one of the places for which he has put me down.

This is all about me and mine, and next I want to know why you never
come to Gad's Hill, and whether you are never coming. The stress I lay
on these questions you will infer from the size of the following note of
interrogation[HW: =?=]

I am in the constant receipt of news from Lausanne. Of Mary Boyle, I
daresay you have seen and heard more than I have lately. Rumours
occasionally reach me of her acting in every English shire incessantly,
and getting in a harvest of laurels all the year round. Cavendish I have
not seen for a long time, but when I did see him last, it was at
Tavistock House, and we dined together jovially. Mention of that
locality reminds me that when you DO come here, you will see the
pictures looking wonderfull