n, so ludicrously transparent, that I can't help laughing while
he looks at me.

[Sidenote: Mr. G. Linnaeus Banks.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Sunday, Dec. 26th, 1852._

MY DEAR SIR,

I will not attempt to tell you how affected and gratified I am by the
intelligence your kind letter conveys to me. Nothing would be more
welcome to me than such a mark of confidence and approval from such a
source, nothing more precious, or that I could set a higher worth upon.

I hasten to return the gauges, of which I have marked one as the size of
the finger, from which this token will never more be absent as long as I
live.

With feelings of the liveliest gratitude and cordiality towards the many
friends who so honour me, and with many thanks to you for the genial
earnestness with which you represent them,

I am, my dear Sir, very faithfully yours.

P.S.--Will you do me the favour to inform the dinner committee that a
friend of mine, Mr. Clement, of Shrewsbury, is very anxious to purchase
a ticket for the dinner, and that if they will be so good as to forward
one for him to me I shall feel much obliged.

FOOTNOTE:

[14] The great Duke of Wellington's funeral.

1853.

NARRATIVE.

In this year, Charles Dickens was still writing "Bleak House," and went
to Brighton for a short time in the spring. In May he had an attack of
illness, a return of an old trouble of an inflammatory pain in the
side, which was short but very severe while it lasted. Immediately on
his recovery, early in June, a departure from London for the summer was
resolved upon. He had decided upon trying Boulogne this year for his
holiday sojourn, and as soon as he was strong enough to travel, he, his
wife, and sister-in-law went there in advance of the family, taking up
their quarters at the Hotel des Bains, to find a house, which was
speedily done. The pretty little Villa des Moulineaux, and its excellent
landlord, at once took his fancy, and in that house, and in another on
the same ground, also belonging to M. Beaucourt, he passed three very
happy summers. And he became as much attached to "Our French Watering
Place" as to "Our English" one. Having written a sketch of Broadstairs
under that name in "Household Words," he did the same of Boulogne under
the former title.

During the summer, besides his other work, he was employed in dictating
"The Child's History of England," which he published in "