I have often had presentiments, and they have usually been realised; but this was more than a presentiment: it was a certainty that interfered with all my preparations, surrounding them with a feeling of apprehension. I gave orders for the making of the costume, which I was convinced I should never wear; I set myself drearily to learn the part of “Dame Kitely,” which I _knew_ I was never destined to recite. My foreboding was but too sadly fulfilled. My sister-in-law came into the room one day and broke to me as tenderly as possible the death, in circumstances of a most distressing nature, of that dear and beautiful friend to whom I have alluded by the name of Fanny. If any words could have afforded me consolation at so terrible a moment, they would have been such tender and sympathetic lines as those which I received from the kind manager of our company, when he said: [Sidenote: LETTER FROM CHARLES DICKENS] “We are all extremely concerned and distressed to lose you, but we feel that it cannot be otherwise, and we do not in our own expectation of amusement, forget the sad cause of your absence. Bulwer was here yesterday, and if I were to tell you how earnestly he and all the other friends whom you don’t know have looked forward to the projected association with you, and in what a friendly spirit they all express their disappointment, you would be quite moved by it, I think.” In November, 1851, Charles Dickens and his family went to live in Tavistock House, Tavistock Square, where they remained until the year 1857. The very sound of the name is replete to me with memories of innumerable evenings passed in the most congenial and delightful intercourse; dinners, where the guests vied with each other in brilliant conversation, whether intellectual, witty, or sparkling—evenings devoted to music or theatricals. First and foremost of that magic circle was the host himself, always “one of us,” who invariably drew out what was best and most characteristic in others, who used the monosyllable “we” much more frequently than that of “I,” and who made use of his superiority to charm and quicken the society around him, but never to crush or overpower it with a sense of their inferiority. The most diffident girl was encouraged to express her modest opinion to the great man, and in him the youngest child ever found a ready play-fellow. I can never forget one evening, shortly after the arrival at Tavistock House, when we danced in the New Year. It seemed like a page cut out of the “Christmas Carol,” as far, at least, as fun and frolic went: authors, actors, friends from near and far, formed the avenues of two long English country dances, in one of which I had the honour of going up and down the middle, almost “interminably” as it seemed, with Charles Dickens for my partner.