“DEAR SIR,—We withdrew from your Christmas entertainment on Monday last with mingled feelings of gratification and reprobation. When I say ‘we’ I should tell you that my Charlotte and I not only brought with us a Miss Elizabeth Bennet, one of the friends of her maiden state, but were honoured by the company of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence have, as you know, preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of England. It is as a clergyman that I feel it my duty to warn you against the sinful game of cards exhibited in the scene of the Prince’s ball. If it had been family whist, I could have excused it, for there can be little harm in whist, at least among players who are not in such circumstances as to make five shillings any object. But the Baroness Beauxchamps is manifestly engaged in a game of sheer chance, if not of downright cheating. The admission of this incident to your stage cannot but have proceeded, you must allow me to tell you, from a faulty degree of indulgence. And I am to add, on the high authority of Lady Catherine, probably the highest on this as on many other subjects, that there is no instance on record of the _paniers_ once worn by ladies being used as card-tables. With respectful compliments to your lady and family, “I remain, dear sir, your cousin, “WILLIAM COLLINS.” MR. PICKWICK AT THE PLAY “And now,” said Mr. Pickwick, looking round on his friends with a good-humoured smile, and a sparkle in the eye which no spectacles could dim or conceal, “the question is, Where shall we go to-night?” With the faithful Sam in attendance behind his chair, he was seated at the head of his own table, with Mr. Snodgrass on his left and Mr. Winkle on his right and Mr. Alfred Jingle opposite him; his face was rosy with jollity, for they had just dispatched a hearty meal of chops and tomato sauce, with bottled ale and Madeira, and a special allowance of milk punch for the host. Mr. Jingle proposed Mr. Pickwick; and Mr. Pickwick proposed Mr. Jingle. Mr. Snodgrass proposed Mr. Winkle; and Mr. Winkle proposed Mr. Snodgrass; while Sam, taking a deep pull at the stone bottle of milk punch behind his master’s chair, silently proposed himself.