made this gentleman's acquaintance in London; do be sure and tell me if so, and whether he is really the very charming man in society which he has the name of being here. Mrs. Sinclair said, in speaking of him to-day, that he was one of the very few great actors whom it did to know off the stage, but that he was thoroughly satisfactory. 'So unlike either authors or painters, you know,' added Mrs. Sinclair, in that bored manner of hers; 'they never do, dear, out of print and off canvas; but Bryan Duval is charming!' Charming doesn't mean very much, for every one says it, and everybody means by it something different from what everybody else means. If you say Bryan Duval is 'charming,' I shall know the value of the verdict, and be quite sure that I shall find him so, for of course we shall know him here, whether you have made his acquaintance in London or not. If you have, dear Alston, give him a letter of introduction to me, for I really think I am slightly bitten by the popular enthusiasm, and though I cannot say, like Mrs. Sinclair, that I am 'dying to know him,' it would be very pleasant, and I should at once call upon his wife, of whom I have heard a great deal. I have nothing particularly interesting to communicate respecting household affairs; everything is going on very well and very quietly. Of course, my dearest Alston, you will expect that this letter should contain some reference to the commission with which you charged Mr. Warren on the day of your departure, and which he immediately fulfilled. Will you pardon me if I make my reference to it a brief one in proportion to its importance and to the large share which I know it has had in your thoughts? Our parting is too new, the sense of its inevitable duration weighs too heavily upon me. I am obliged to set my face too steadfastly to overcome the nervousness, the anxiety, and the loneliness involved in dwelling upon it to admit of my saying all that I feel, or even any part of it, with regard to the contents of the letter which your friend handed to me. If I said all, if I said any, it would come to the same thing--that letter is like you, Alston; it is an absolute fulfilment, a complete realisation of the estimate which I have formed of you. If by any horrible decree of Fate the occasion should ever arise on which it would be my doom and my duty to act upon the instructions, and to carry out the provisions, contained in that letter, I should do so with a proud and full sense that they are worthy of you, that they are such last words, such last instructions, as, if I could have chosen, I should have asked of you. And now I must pass away from this subject. I am unequal to saying more about it. When I can say what I have felt, with my head on your shoulder and my hand in yours, you will know what the receipt and the reading of that letter was to me. The other commission with which you charged Mr. Warren, I fear, I received in a different spirit--one