consideration.

But I have a very strong objection to speech-making beside graves. I do
not expect or wish my feeling in this wise to guide other men; still, it
is so serious with me, and the idea of ever being the subject of such a
ceremony myself is so repugnant to my soul, that I must decline to
officiate.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND," NO. 26, WELLINGTON STREET,
STRAND, LONDON, W.C.,
_Tuesday, Aug. 3rd, 1869._

MY DEAREST MAMIE,

I send you the second chapter of the remarkable story. The printer is
late with it, and I have not had time to read it, and as I altered it
considerably here and there, I have no doubt there are some verbal
mistakes in it. However, they will probably express themselves.

But I offer a prize of six pairs of gloves--between you, and your aunt,
and Ellen Stone, as competitors--to whomsoever will tell me what idea in
this second part is mine. I don't mean an idea in language, in the
turning of a sentence, in any little description of an action, or a
gesture, or what not in a small way, but an idea, distinctly affecting
the whole story _as I found it_. You are all to assume that I found it
in the main as you read it, with one exception. If I had written it, I
should have made the woman love the man at last. And I should have
shadowed that possibility out, by the child's bringing them a little
more together on that holiday Sunday.

But I didn't write it. So, finding that it wanted something, I put that
something in. What was it?

Love to Ellen Stone.

[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Friday, Aug. 13th, 1869._

MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,

Many thanks for your letter.

I have very strong opinions on the subject of speechification, and hold
that there is, everywhere, a vast amount too much of it. A sense of
absurdity would be so strong upon me, if I got up at Birmingham to make
a flourish on the advantages of education in the abstract for all sorts
and conditions of men, that I should inevitably check myself and present
a surprising incarnation of the soul of wit. But if I could interest
myself in the practical usefulness of the particular institution; in the
ways of life of the students; in their ex