e most genial and delightful friendly hours of my life. I am almost
ashamed to set such recollections by the side of your mother's great
bereavement and grief, but they spring out of the fulness of my heart.

May God be with her and with you all!

Ever yours affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. James T. Fields.]

ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Friday, April 9th, 1869._

MY DEAR FIELDS,

The faithful _Russia_ will bring this out to you, as a sort of warrant
to take you into loving custody and bring you back on her return trip.

I rather think that when the 12th of June shall have shaken off these
shackles,[102] there _will_ be borage on the lawn at Gad's. Your heart's
desire in that matter, and in the minor particulars of Cobham Park,
Rochester Castle, and Canterbury, shall be fulfilled, please God! The
red jackets shall turn out again upon the turnpike-road, and picnics
among the cherry-orchards and hop-gardens shall be heard of in Kent.
Then, too, shall the Uncommercial resuscitate (being at present nightly
murdered by Mr. W. Sikes) and uplift his voice again.

The chief officer of the _Russia_ (a capital fellow) was at the Reading
last night, and Dolby specially charged him with the care of you and
yours. We shall be on the borders of Wales, and probably about Hereford,
when you arrive. Dolby has insane projects of getting over here to meet
you; so amiably hopeful and obviously impracticable, that I encourage
him to the utmost. The regular little captain of the _Russia_, Cook, is
just now changed into the _Cuba_, whence arise disputes of seniority,
etc. I wish he had been with you, for I liked him very much when I was
his passenger. I like to think of your being in _my_ ship!

---- and ---- have been taking it by turns to be "on the point of
death," and have been complimenting one another greatly on the fineness
of the point attained. My people got a very good impression of ----, and
thought her a sincere and earnest little woman.

The _Russia_ hauls out into the stream to-day, and I fear her people may
be too busy to come to us to-night. But if any of them do, they shall
have the warmest of welcomes for your sake. (By-the-bye, a very good
party of seamen from the Queen's ship _Donegal_, lying in the Mersey,
have been told off to decorate St. George's Hall with the ship's
bunting. They were all hanging on aloft upside down, holding to the
gigantically hi