t down into that part of the country on the 7th of
January last year, when I was meditating the story, and chose
Blunderstone for the sound of its name. I had previously observed much
of what you say about the poor girls. In all you suggest with so much
feeling about their return to virtue being cruelly cut off, I concur
with a sore heart. I have been turning it over in my mind for some time,
and hope, in the history of Little Em'ly (who _must_ fall--there is no
hope for her), to put it before the thoughts of people in a new and
pathetic way, and perhaps to do some good. You will be glad to hear, I
know, that "Copperfield" is a great success. I think it is better liked
than any of my other books.

We had a most delightful time at Watsons' (for both of them we have
preserved and strengthened a real affection), and were the gayest of the
gay. There was a Miss Boyle staying in the house, who is an excellent
amateur actress, and she and I got up some scenes from "The School for
Scandal" and from "Nickleby," with immense success. We played in the old
hall, with the audience filled up and running over with servants. The
entertainments concluded with feats of legerdemain (for the performance
of which I have a pretty good apparatus, collected at divers times and
in divers places), and we then fell to country dances of a most frantic
description, and danced all night. We often spoke of you and Mrs. Cerjat
and of Haldimand, and wished you were all there. Watson and I have some
fifty times "registered a vow" (like O'Connell) to come to Lausanne
together, and have even settled in what month and week. Something or
other has always interposed to prevent us; but I hope, please God, most
certainly to see it again, when my labours-Copperfieldian shall have
terminated.

You have no idea what that hanging of the Mannings really was. The
conduct of the people was so indescribably frightful, that I felt for
some time afterwards almost as if I were living in a city of devils. I
feel, at this hour, as if I never could go near the place again. My
letters have made a great to-do, and led to a great agitation of the
subject; but I have not a confident belief in any change being made,
mainly because the total abolitionists are utterly reckless and
dishonest (generally speaking), and would play the deuce with any such
proposition in Parliament, unless it were strongly supported by the
Government, which it would certainly not be, the Whig motto (i