nty-nine, dress, black frock and jacket, exquisitely braided) if it
had not been safe in your possession.

Many, many happy years to you! My regards to that obstinate old
Wurzell[21] and his dame, when you have them under lock and key again.

Ever affectionately yours.

[Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _January 27th, 1855._

MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL,

Let me congratulate you on the conclusion of your story; not because it
is the end of a task to which you had conceived a dislike (for I imagine
you to have got the better of that delusion by this time), but because
it is the vigorous and powerful accomplishment of an anxious labour. It
seems to me that you have felt the ground thoroughly firm under your
feet, and have strided on with a force and purpose that MUST now give
you pleasure.

You will not, I hope, allow that not-lucid interval of dissatisfaction
with yourself (and me?), which beset you for a minute or two once upon a
time, to linger in the shape of any disagreeable association with
"Household Words." I shall still look forward to the large sides of
paper, and shall soon feel disappointed if they don't begin to reappear.

I thought it best that Wills should write the business letter on the
conclusion of the story, as that part of our communications had always
previously rested with him. I trust you found it satisfactory? I refer
to it, not as a matter of mere form, but because I sincerely wish
everything between us to be beyond the possibility of misunderstanding
or reservation.

Dear Mrs. Gaskell, very faithfully yours.

[Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Ryland.]

TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Monday, Jan. 29th, 1855._

MY DEAR MR. RYLAND,

I have been in the greatest difficulty--which I am not yet out of--to
know what to read at Birmingham. I fear the idea of next month is now
impracticable. Which of two other months do you think would be
preferable for your Birmingham objects? Next May, or next December?

Having already read two Christmas books at Birmingham, I should like to
get out of that restriction, and have a swim in the broader waters of
one of my long books. I have been poring over "Copperfield" (which is my
favourite), with the idea of getting a reading out of it, to be called
by some such name as "Young Housekeeping and Little Emily." But there is
still the huge diff