'By the way, my dear, talking about costumes, I think it would be advisable that you should have two first-rate evening gowns--don't fly into a rage now. Your toilette yesterday was particularly good, and I have no doubt you show quite as much good taste in your evening dress, but I want something exceptionally stylish; you will be seen a great deal more in public over there than you are here. You will probably have a reception, as they call it, from one of their artistic societies, and on off-nights will have to show-up at the opera, or one of the other theatres; and as our good friends on the other side attach immense importance to dress--and rightly too, according to my notions--I want you at once to send a pattern-body to Madame Lagrange, 118 Rue Vivienne. That's all! You need take no further trouble about the matter. I have written to old Lagrange by this post--I have known her ever since I was a boy--and told her exactly what you want; for my sake the old lady will put on all steam, and you will have your gowns in time to pack them for America. I have also desired Madame Lagrange to send the bill to me, a liberty which, I trust, under the circumstances, you will excuse. 'I have an enormous number of things to get ready before I start; the rehearsal of _Pickwick's Progress_ to superintend at the Gravity, and an action to bring against a rascal in the North who has been producing an exact copy of the _Cruiskeen Lawn,_ fights, songs, Irish wake, and all under the title of the _Jug of Punch_. The copyright law in this country is disgraceful. By the way, did you see those absurd remarks in the _Earwig_ about me and Mr. Dickens, in connection with Pickwick's Progress? I mention this in case I may not be able to call upon you before we start, so that you may be perfectly sure to be at Euston very soon after eleven. Till then good-bye. 'Yours always, 'BRYAN DUVAL. 'P.S.--What a good dinner it was yesterday, and how very jolly we all were! I have taken a great fancy to Foster, he seems to be an exceptionally good fellow. He talks of coming down to Liverpool to see us off. If he does, I shall make a point of giving him a dinner at the Adelphi the night before we sail--they have some green turtle there--but women don't understand these things.' 'Mr. Foster is an exceptionally good fellow,' said Miss Montressor, laying down the letter, 'and you are another, Bryan Duval. This experience confirms me in my opinion, that whenever you hear men bitter and disparaging in their remarks about a man who is before the world, and who is successful, he is sure to prove remarkably pleasant, agreeable, and kind-hearted. Now I am sure nothing could be more thoughtful or more delicate than Mr. Duval's suggestion about those gowns, and what a queer fellow he is too!' she said, taking up the letter again; 'fancy his writing about a "pattern-body"--he seems to know everything.'