In the course of this summer Charles Dickens was not well, and went for a week to his old favourite, Broadstairs--where Mr. Wilkie Collins and his brother, Mr. Charles Allston Collins, were staying--for sea-air and change, preparatory to another reading tour, in England only. His letter from Peterborough to Mr. Frank Stone, giving him an account of a reading at Manchester (Mr. Stone's native town), was one of the last ever addressed to that affectionate friend, who died very suddenly, to the great grief of Charles Dickens, in November. The letter to Mr. Thomas Longman, which closes this year, was one of introduction to that gentleman of young Marcus Stone, then just beginning his career as an artist, and to whom the premature death of his father made it doubly desirable that he should have powerful helping hands. Charles Dickens refers, in a letter to Mrs. Watson, to his portrait by Mr. Frith, which was finished at the end of 1858. It was painted for Mr. Forster, and is now in the "Forster Collection" at South Kensington Museum. The Christmas number of this year, again written by several hands as well as his own, was "The Haunted House." In November, his story of "A Tale of Two Cities" was finished in "All the Year Round," and in December was published, complete, with dedication to Lord John Russell. [Sidenote: Mr. Arthur Smith.] TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, LONDON, W.C., _Wednesday, Jan. 26th, 1859._ MY DEAR ARTHUR, Will you first read the enclosed letters, having previously welcomed, with all possible cordiality, the bearer, Mr. Thomas C. Evans, from New York? You having read them, let me explain that Mr. Fields is a highly respectable and influential man, one of the heads of the most classical and most respected publishing house in America; that Mr. Richard Grant White is a man of high reputation; and that Felton is the Greek Professor in their Cambridge University, perhaps the most distinguished scholar in the States. The address to myself, referred to in one of the letters, being on its way, it is quite clear that I must give some decided and definite answer to the American proposal. Now, will you carefully discuss it with Mr. Evans before I enter on it at all? Then, will you dine here with him on Sunday--which I will propose to him--and arrange to meet at half-past four for an hour's discussion? The points are these: First. I have a very grave question within myself whether I could go to America at all. Secondly. If I did go, I could not possibly go before the autumn. Thirdly. If I did go, how long must I stay? Fourthly. If the stay were a short one, could _you_ go? Fifthly. What is his project? What could I make? What occurs to you upon his proposal? I have told him that the business arrangements of the readings have been from the first so entirely in your hands, that I enter upon nothing connected with them without previous reference to you.