k to the old Adelphi days until she was just dying,
when he heard her say, in great perplexity: "I can _not_ get the words."

Best love to Mrs. Forster.

Ever, my dear Forster, affectionately.

[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Wednesday, Oct. 24th, 1860._

MY DEAR WILKIE,

I have been down to Brighton to see Forster, and found your letter there
on arriving by express this morning. I also found a letter from
Georgina, describing that Mary's horse went down suddenly on a stone,
and how Mary was thrown, and had her riding-habit torn to pieces, and
has a deep cut just above the knee--fortunately not in the knee itself,
which is doing exceedingly well, but which will probably incapacitate
her from walking for days and days to come. It is well it was no worse.
The accident occurred at Milton, near Gravesend, and they found Mary in
a public-house there, wonderfully taken care of and looked after.

I propose that we start on Thursday morning, the 1st of November. The
train for Penzance leaves the Great Western terminus at a quarter-past
nine in the morning. It is a twelve hours' journey. Shall we meet at the
terminus at nine? I shall be here all the previous day, and shall dine
here.

Your account of your passage goes to my heart through my stomach. What a
pity I was not there on board to present that green-visaged, but
sweet-tempered and uncomplaining spectacle of imbecility, at which I am
so expert under stormy circumstances, in the poet's phrase:

As I sweep
Through the deep,
When the stormy winds do blow.

What a pity I am not there, at Meurice's, to sleep the sleep of infancy
through the long plays where the gentlemen stand with their backs to the
mantelpieces. What a pity I am not with you to make a third at the Trois
Freres, and drink no end of bottles of Bordeaux, without ever getting a
touch of redness in my (poet's phrase again) "innocent nose." But I must
go down to Gad's to-night, and get to work again. Four weekly numbers
have been ground off the wheel, and at least another must be turned
before we meet. They shall be yours in the slumberous railway-carriage.

I don't think Forster is at all in good health. He was tremendously
hospitable and hearty. I walked six hours and a half on the downs
yesterday, and never stopped or sat. Early in