The American yacht race is the last sensation. I hope the general interest felt in it on this side will have a wholesome interest on that. It will be a woeful day when John and Jonathan throw their caps into the ring. The French Emperor is indubitably in a dangerous state. His Parisian popularity wanes, and his army are discontented with him. I hear on high authority that his secret police are always making discoveries that render him desperately uneasy. You know how we have been swindling in these parts. But perhaps you don't know that Mr. ----, the "eminent" contractor, before he fell into difficulties settled _one million of money_ on his wife. Such a good and devoted husband! My daughter Katie has been very ill of nervous fever. On the 27th of December she was in a condition to be brought down here (old high road and post-horses), and has been steadily getting better ever since. Her husband is here too, and is on the whole as well as he ever is or ever will be, I fear. We played forfeit-games here, last night, and then pool. For a billiard-room has been added to the house since you were here. Come and play a match with me. Always affectionately. [Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.] ADELPHI HOTEL, LIVERPOOL, _Monday, Jan. 21st, 1867._ MY DEAREST GEORGY, First I send you my most affectionate wishes for many, many happy returns of your birthday. That done, from my heart of hearts, I go on to my small report of myself. The readings have produced such an immense effect here that we are coming back for two more in the middle of February. "Marigold" and the "Trial," on Friday night, and the "Carol," on Saturday afternoon, were a perfect furore; and the surprise about "Barbox" has been amusingly great. It is a most extraordinary thing, after the enormous sale of that Christmas number, that the provincial public seems to have combined to believe that it _won't_ make a reading. From Wolverhampton and Leeds we have exactly the same expression of feelings _beforehand_. Exactly as I made "Copperfield"--always to the poorest houses I had with Headland, and against that luminary's entreaty--so I should have to make this, if I hadn't "Marigold" always in demand. It being next to impossible for people to come out at night with horses, we have felt the weather in the stalls, and expect to do so through this week. The half-crown and shilling publics have crushed to their places most splendidly. The enthusiasm has been unbounded. On Friday night I quite astonished myself; but I was taken so faint afterwards that they laid me on a sofa at the hall for half an hour. I attribute it to my distressing inability to sleep at night, and to nothing worse.