e have
had here since I returned. In desperation I went out to the Barrieres
last Sunday on a headlong walk, and came back with my very eyebrows
smeared with mud. Georgina is usually invisible during the walking time
of the day. A turned-up nose may be seen in the midst of splashes, but
nothing more.

I am settling to work again, and my horrible restlessness immediately
assails me. It belongs to such times. As I was writing the preceding
page, it suddenly came into my head that I would get up and go to
Calais. I don't know why; the moment I got there I should want to go
somewhere else. But, as my friend the Boots says (see Christmas number
"Household Words"): "When you come to think what a game you've been up
to ever since you was in your own cradle, and what a poor sort of a chap
you were, and how it's always yesterday with you, or else to-morrow, and
never to-day, that's where it is."

My dear Mary, would you favour me with the name and address of the
professor that taught you writing, for I want to improve myself? Many a
hand have I seen with many characteristics of beauty in it--some loopy,
some dashy, some large, some small, some sloping to the right, some
sloping to the left, some not sloping at all; but what I like in _your_
hand, Mary, is its plainness, it is like print. Them as runs may read
just as well as if they stood still. I should have thought it was
copper-plate if I hadn't known you. They send all sorts of messages from
here, and so do I, with my best regards to Bedgy and pardner and the
blessed babbies. When shall we meet again, I wonder, and go somewhere!
Ah!

Believe me ever, my dear Mary,
Yours truly and affectionately,

Joe.
(That doesn't look plain.)
JOE.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

"HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Friday, Feb. 8th, 1856._

MY DEAR GEORGY,

I must write this at railroad speed, for I have been at it all day, and
have numbers of letters to cram into the next half-hour. I began the
morning in the City, for the Theatrical Fund; went on to Shepherd's
Bush; came back to leave cards for Mr. Baring and Mr. Bates; ran across
Piccadilly to Stratton Street, stayed there an hour, and shot off here.
I have been in four cabs to-day, at a cost of thirteen shil