er room, with open windows and surrounded
by mignonette boxes, playing the piano in the bosom of his family. I
went to my hosier's, and two of the least presentable of "the young men"
of that elegant establishment were playing at draughts in the back shop.
(Likewise I beheld a porter-pot hastily concealed under a Turkish
dressing-gown of a golden pattern.) I then went wandering about to look
for some ingenious portmanteau, and near the corner of St. James's
Street saw a solitary being sitting in a trunk-shop, absorbed in a book
which, on a close inspection, I found to be "Bleak House." I thought
this looked well, and went in. And he really was more interested in
seeing me, when he knew who I was, than any face I had seen in any
house, every house I knew being occupied by painters, including my own.
I went to the Athenaeum that same night, to get my dinner, and it was
shut up for repairs. I went home late, and had forgotten the key and was
locked out.

Preparations were made here, about six weeks ago, to receive the
Emperor, who is not come yet. Meanwhile our countrymen (deluded in the
first excitement) go about staring at these arrangements, with a
personal injury upon them which is most ridiculous. And they _will_
persist in speaking an unknown tongue to the French people, who _will_
speak English to them.

Kate and Georgina send their kindest loves. We are all quite well. Going
to drop two small boys here, at school with a former Eton tutor highly
recommended to me. Charley was heard of a day or two ago. He says his
professor "is very short-sighted, always in green spectacles, always
drinking weak beer, always smoking a pipe, and always at work." The last
qualification seems to appear to Charley the most astonishing one.

Ever, my dear Mrs. Watson,
Most affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

HOTEL DE LA VILLA, MILAN, _Tuesday, Oct. 25th, 1853._

MY DEAR GEORGY,

I have walked to that extent in Switzerland (walked over the Simplon on
Sunday, as an addition to the other feats) that one pair of the new
strong shoes has gone to be mended this morning, and the other is in but
a poor way; the snow having played the mischief with them.

On the Swiss side of the Simplon, we slept at the beastliest little
town, in the wildest kind of house, where some fifty cats tumbled into
the corridor outside our bedrooms all at once i