feelings _beforehand_. Exactly as I
made "Copperfield"--always to the poorest houses I had with Headland,
and against that luminary's entreaty--so I should have to make this, if
I hadn't "Marigold" always in demand.

It being next to impossible for people to come out at night with horses,
we have felt the weather in the stalls, and expect to do so through this
week. The half-crown and shilling publics have crushed to their places
most splendidly. The enthusiasm has been unbounded. On Friday night I
quite astonished myself; but I was taken so faint afterwards that they
laid me on a sofa at the hall for half an hour. I attribute it to my
distressing inability to sleep at night, and to nothing worse.

Scott does very well indeed. As a dresser he is perfect. In a quarter of
an hour after I go into the retiring-room, where all my clothes are
airing and everything is set out neatly in its own allotted space, I am
ready; and he then goes softly out, and sits outside the door. In the
morning he is equally punctual, quiet, and quick. He has his needles and
thread, buttons, and so forth, always at hand; and in travelling he is
very systematic with the luggage. What with Dolby and what with this
skilful valet, everything is made as easy to me as it possibly _can_ be,
and Dolby would do anything to lighten the work, and does everything.

There is great distress here among the poor (four thousand people
relieved last Saturday at one workhouse), and there is great anxiety
concerning _seven mail-steamers some days overdue_. Such a circumstance
as this last has never been known. It is supposed that some great
revolving storm has whirled them all out of their course. One of these
missing ships is an American mail, another an Australian mail.

_Same Afternoon._

We have been out for four hours in the bitter east wind, and walking on
the sea-shore, where there is a broad strip of great blocks of ice. My
hands are so rigid that I write with great difficulty.

We have been constantly talking of the terrible Regent's Park accident.
I hope and believe that nearly the worst of it is now known.

[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]

CHESTER, _Tuesday, Jan. 22nd, 1867._

MY DEAREST MAMIE,

We came over here from Liverpool at eleven this forenoon. There was a
heavy swell in the Mersey breaking over the boat; the cold was nipping,
and all the roads we saw as