from the door
of the only theayter you was ever turned from, sir, and when the beasts
in railway cars spits tobacco over your boots, you (privately) find
yourself in a beastly country."

I expect shortly to get myself snowed up on some railway or other, for
it is snowing hard now, and I begin to move to-morrow. There is so much
floating ice in the river that we are obliged to leave a pretty wide
margin of time for getting over the ferry to read. The dinner is coming
in, and I must leave off.

[Sidenote: Miss Dickens.]

PHILADELPHIA, _Thursday, Jan. 23rd, 1868._

When I wrote to your aunt by the last mail, I accidentally omitted to
touch upon the question of helping Anne. So I will begin in this present
writing with reference to her sad position. I think it will be best for
you to be guided by an exact knowledge of her _wants_. Try to ascertain
from herself what means she has, whether her sick husband gets what he
ought to have, whether she is pinched in the articles of necessary
clothing, bedding, or the like of that; add to this intelligence your
own observation of the state of things about her, and supply what she
most wants, and help her where you find the greatest need. The question,
in the case of so old and faithful a servant, is not one of so much or
so little money on my side, but how _most efficiently_ to ease her mind
and help _her_. To do this at once kindly and sensibly is the only
consideration by which you have to be guided. Take _carte blanche_ from
me for all the rest.

My Washington week is the first week in February, beginning on Monday,
3rd. The tickets are sold, and the President is coming, and the chief
members of the Cabinet, and the leaders of parties, and so forth, are
coming; and, as the Holly Tree Boots says: "That's where it is, don't
you see!"

In my Washington doubts I recalled Dolby for conference, and he joined
me yesterday afternoon, and we have been in great discussion ever since
on the possibility of giving up the Far West, and avoiding such immense
distances and fatigues as would be involved in travelling to Chicago and
Cincinnati. We have sketched another tour for the last half of March,
which would be infinitely easier for me, though on the other hand less
profitable, the places and the halls being smaller. The worst of it is,
that everybody one advises with has a monomania respecting Chicago.
"Good heaven, sir," the great Philadelphian authority