DEAR MR. B.,--I never was so surprised in my life as when we got your paper here, to see that your printing people had called Ma' and me Higginbottom--I was sure, and I told Ma' so, that it could not be your fault, because you could not have made such a mistake in my handwriting, nor could you have forgotten me so much as to have done such a thing; but I suppose you were so happy and comfortable with your friends (for judging by the number of your enemies you must have a host of them) at this merry season, that you did not pay so much attention to your correspondents as usual. I forgive you, my dear Mr. B.--Christmas comes but once a-year, and I assure you we had a small lump of roast beef (_portion pour deux_) from M. Godeau's, over the way, to keep up our national custom--the man actually asked Ma' whether she would have a _rost-bif de mouton_; so little do they know anything about it. I send another portion of Ma's diary--you spelt it "dairy" in the paper--I don't know whether Ma' put it so herself--she is quite pleased at seeing it published, and Mr. Fulmer called and said it was capital. We have just come from the Ambassador's chapel, and are going to see St. Cloud directly, so I cannot write much myself, but must say adieu.--Always believe me, dear Mr. B., yours truly, LAVINIA RAMSBOTTOM. ENGLAND AND FRANCE, BY DOROTHEA JULIA RAMSBOTTOM. (_Continued._) "When we came near the French shore, a batto (which is much the same as a boat in England) came off to us, and, to my agreeable surprise, an Englishman came into our ship; and I believe he was a man of great consequence, for I overheard him explaining some dreadful quarrel which had taken place in our Royal Family. "He said to the master of our ship, that owing to the Prince Leopold having run foul of the Duchess of Kent while she was in stays, the Duchess had missed Deal. By which I conclude it was a dispute at cards--however, I want to know nothing of state secrets, or I might have heard a great deal more, because it appeared that the Duchess's head was considerably injured in the scuffle. "I was very much distressed to see that a fat gentleman who was in the ship, had fallen into a fit of perplexity by over-reaching himself--he lay prostituted upon the floor, and if it had not been that we had a doctor in the ship, who immediately opened his temporary artery and his jocular vein, with a lancelot which he had in his pocket, I think we should have seen his end. "It was altogether a most moving spectacle--he thought himself dying, and all his anxiety in the midst of his distress was to be able to add a crocodile to his will, in favour of his niece, about whom he appeared very sanguinary.