the best wine in
this part of it. Send me a word in reply. I will fetch you from
anywhere, at any indicated time.

We have very pretty places in the neighbourhood, and are not
uncomfortable people (I believe) to stay with.

Faithfully yours ever.

[Sidenote: Mr. Charles Reade.]

OFFICE OF "ALL THE YEAR ROUND,"
_Wednesday, Sept. 30th, 1863._

MY DEAR READE,

I _must_ write you one line to say how interested I am in your story,
and to congratulate you upon its admirable art and its surprising grace
and vigour.

And to hint my hope, at the same time, that you will be able to find
leisure for a little dash for the Christmas number. It would be a really
great and true pleasure to me if you could.

Faithfully yours always.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT,
_Wednesday, Oct. 7th, 1863._

MY DEAREST GEORGY,

You will see by to-day's _Times_ that it _was_ an earthquake that shook
me, and that my watch showed exactly the same time as the man's who
writes from Blackheath so near us--twenty minutes past three.

It is a great satisfaction to me to make it out so precisely; I wish you
would enquire whether the servants felt it. I thought it was the voice
of the cook that answered me, but that was nearly half an hour later. I
am strongly inclined to think that there is a peculiar susceptibility in
iron--at all events in our part of the country--to the shock, as though
there were something magnetic in it. For, whereas my long iron bedstead
was so violently shaken, I certainly heard nothing rattle in the room.

I will write about my return as soon as I get on with the still unbegun
"Uncommercial."

Ever affectionately.

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

GAD'S HILL, _Sunday, Dec. 20th, 1863._

MY DEAR WILLS,

I am clear that you took my cold. Why didn't you do the thing
completely, and take it away from me? for it hangs by me still.

Will you tell Mrs. Linton that in looking over her admirable account
(_most_ admirable) of Mrs. Gordon's book, I have taken out the
references to Lockhart, not because I in the least doubt their justice,
but because I knew him and he like