have
got it by this time, I should refuse comfort. That supports me.

The book has been a wonderful success. Its audience enormous.

I fear there is not much chance of my being able to execute any little
commission for Lady John anywhere in Italy. But I am going across the
Alps, leaving here on the tenth of next month, and returning home to
London for Christmas Day, and should indeed be happy if I could do her
any dwarf service.

You will be interested, I think, to hear that Poole lives happily on his
pension, and lives within it. He is quite incapable of any mental
exertion, and what he would have done without it I cannot imagine. I
send it to him at Paris every quarter. It is something, even amid the
estimation in which you are held, which is but a foreshadowing of what
shall be by-and-by as the people advance, to be so gratefully remembered
as he, with the best reason, remembers you. Forgive my saying this. But
the manner of that transaction, no less than the matter, is always fresh
in my memory in association with your name, and I cannot help it.

My dear Lord,
Yours very faithfully and obliged.

[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]

BOULOGNE, _Wednesday, Sept. 21st, 1853._

MY DEAR MRS. WATSON,

The courier was unfortunately engaged. He offered to recommend another,
but I had several applicants, and begged Mr. Wills to hold a grand
review at the "Household Words" office, and select the man who is to
bring me down as his victim. I am extremely sorry the man you recommend
was not to be had. I should have been so delighted to take him.

I am finishing "The Child's History," and clearing the way through
"Household Words," in general, before I go on my trip. I forget whether
I told you that Mr. Egg the painter and Mr. Collins are going with me.
The other day I was in town. In case you should not have heard of the
condition of that deserted village, I think it worth mentioning. All the
streets of any note were unpaved, mountains high, and all the omnibuses
were sliding down alleys, and looking into the upper windows of small
houses. At eleven o'clock one morning I was positively _alone_ in Bond
Street. I went to one of my tailors, and he was at Brighton. A
smutty-faced woman among some gorgeous regimentals, half finished, had
not the least idea when he would be back. I went to another of my
tailors, and he was in an upp