It is a book I have long
desired to see done, and never expected to see half so well done. Many
thanks to you for it.

Ever faithfully yours.

P.S.--Please to observe the address at Boulogne: "Villa du Camp de
Droite."

[Sidenote: Mr. W. H. Wills.]

VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, _Thursday, June 22nd, 1854._

MY DEAR WILLS,

I have nothing to say, but having heard from you this morning, think I
may as well report all well.

We have a most charming place here. It beats the former residence all to
nothing. We have a beautiful garden, with all its fruits and flowers,
and a field of our own, and a road of our own away to the Column, and
everything that is airy and fresh. The great Beaucourt hovers about us
like a guardian genius, and I imagine that no English person in a
carriage could by any possibility find the place.

Of the wonderful inventions and contrivances with which a certain
inimitable creature has made the most of it, I will say nothing, until
you have an opportunity of inspecting the same. At present I will only
observe that I have written exactly seventy-two words of "Hard Times,"
since I have been here.

The children arrived on Tuesday night, by London boat, in every stage
and aspect of sea-sickness.

The camp is about a mile off, and huts are now building for (they say)
sixty thousand soldiers. I don't imagine it to be near enough to bother
us.

If the weather ever should be fine, it might do you good sometimes to
come over with the proofs on a Saturday, when the tide serves well,
before you and Mrs. W. make your annual visit. Recollect there is always
a bed, and no sudden appearance will put us out.

Kind regards.
Ever faithfully.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]

VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
_Wednesday Night, July 12th, 1854._

MY DEAR COLLINS,

Bobbing up, corkwise, from a sea of "Hard Times" I beg to report this
tenement--AMAZING!!! Range of view and air, most free and delightful;
hill-side garden, delicious; field, stupendous; speculations in haycocks
already effected by the undersigned, with the view to the keeping up of
a "home" at rounders.

I hope to finish and get to town by next Wednesday night, the 19th; what
do you say to coming back with me on the followin