, he must needs send me down what he termed a
little Christmas box, which was a huge box from Howel and James's,
containing only eight Gros de Naples dresses of different colours
not made up, four Gros des Indes, two merino ones, four satin ones,
an amber, a black, a white and a blue, eight pocket handkerchiefs
that look as if they had been spun out of lilies and air and
_brodee_ by the fairies, they are so exquisitely fine and so
beautifully worked. Four pieces (16 yards in each) of beautiful
white blonde, two broad pieces and two less broad, a beautiful and
very large blue real cashmere shawl, a Chantilly veil that would
reach from this to Dublin, and six French long pellerines very
richly embroidered on the finest India muslin, three dozen pair of
white silk stockings, one dozen of black, a most beautiful black
satin cloak with very pretty odd sort of capes and trimmed round
and up the sides with a very broad band of a new kind of figured
plush--I forget what they call it (it came from Paris), and a hat
of the same--such a hat as can only be made in the Rue Vivienne.
You would think that this 'little Christmas box' would have been
enough to have lasted for some time. However, he thought
differently, for on New Year's morning before I was out of bed,
there came a parcel by the mail, which on opening proved to be a
large red Morocco case containing a bright gold chain, a yard and a
half long, with the most beautiful and curious cross to it that I
ever saw--the chain is as thick as my dead gold necklace, and you
may guess what sort of a thing it is when I tell you that I took it
to a jeweller here to have it weighed, and it weighed a pound all
but an ounce. The man said it never was made for less than fifty
guineas, but that he should think it had cost more."

Rosina, who has only L80 a year of her own, will not be outdone, and
cannot "resist ordering" Edward "a gold toilette, which he has long
wished for.... Round the rim of the basin and the handle of the ewer I
have ordered a wreath of _narcissus_ in dead gold, which, for Mr.
Pelham, you'll own, is not a bad idea."

It would be expected that all this crazy display would lead the young
couple rapidly and deeply into debt. That it did not do so is the most
curious phase of the story. Bulwer-Lytton immediately, and apparently
without th