My ladies send their kindest regards, and are disappointed at your not saying that you drink two-and-twenty tumblers of the limpid element, every day. The children also unite in "loves," and the Plornishghenter, on being asked if he would send his, replies "Yes--man," which we understand to signify cordial acquiescence. Forster just come back from lecturing at Sherborne. Describes said lecture as "Blaze of Triumph." H. W. AGAIN. Miss--I mean Mrs.--Bell's story very nice. I have sent it to the printer, and entitled it "The Green Ring and the Gold Ring." This apartment looks desolate in your absence; but, O Heavens, how tidy! F. W. Mrs. Wills supposed to have gone into a convent at Somers Town. My dear Wills, Ever faithfully yours. [Sidenote: Mr. B. W. Procter.] TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _Saturday Night, April 15th, 1854._ MY DEAR PROCTER, I have read the "Fatal Revenge." Don't do what the minor theatrical people call "despi-ser" me, but I think it's very bad. The concluding narrative is by far the most meritorious part of the business. Still, the people are so very convulsive and tumble down so many places, and are always knocking other people's bones about in such a very irrational way, that I object. The way in which earthquakes won't swallow the monsters, and volcanoes in eruption won't boil them, is extremely aggravating. Also their habit of bolting when they are going to explain anything. You have sent me a very different and a much better book; and for that I am truly grateful. With the dust of "Maturin" in my eyes, I sat down and read "The Death of Friends," and the dust melted away in some of those tears it is good to shed. I remember to have read "The Backroom Window" some years ago, and I have associated it with you ever since. It is a most delightful paper. But the two volumes are all delightful, and I have put them on a shelf where you sit down with Charles Lamb again, with Talfourd's vindication of him hard by. We never meet. I hope it is not irreligious, but in this strange London I have an inclination to adapt a portion of the Church Service to our common experience. Thus: "We have left unmet the people whom we ought to have met, and we have met the people whom we ought not to have met, and there seems to be no help in us." But I am always, my dear Procter, (At a distance), Very cordially yours. [Sidenote: Mrs. Gaskell.] TAVISTOCK HOUSE, _April 21st, 1854._ MY DEAR MRS. GASKELL, I safely received the paper from Mr. Shaen, welcomed it with three cheers, and instantly despatched it to the printer, who has it in hand now.