GAD'S HILL PLACE, HIGHAM BY ROCHESTER, KENT, _Sunday, Nov. 17th, 1861._ MY DEAR MARY, I am perfectly enraptured with the quilt. It is one of the most tasteful, lively, elegant things I have ever seen; and I need not tell you that while it is valuable to me for its own ornamental sake, it is precious to me as a rainbow-hint of your friendship and affectionate remembrance. Please God you shall see it next summer occupying its allotted place of state in my brand-new bedroom here. You shall behold it then, with all cheerful surroundings, the envy of mankind. My readings have been doing absolute wonders. Your Duchess and Princess came to hear first "Nickleby" and the "Pickwick Trial," then "Copperfield," at Brighton. I think they were pleased with me, and I am sure I was with them; for they are the very best audience one could possibly desire. I shall always have a pleasant remembrance of them. On Wednesday I am away again for the longest part of my trip. Yes, Mary dear, I must say that I like my Carton, and I have a faint idea sometimes that if I had acted him, I could have done something with his life and death. Believe me, ever your affectionate and faithful JOE. [Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.] QUEEN'S HEAD, NEWCASTLE, _Friday, Nov. 22nd, 1861._ I received your letter this morning, and grieve to report that the unlucky Headland has broken down most awfully! First, as perhaps you remember, this is the place where the bills were "lost" for a week or two. The consequence has been that the agent could not announce all through the "Jenny Lind" time (the most important for announcing), and could but stand still and stare when people came to ask what I was going to read. Last night I read "Copperfield" to the most enthusiastic and appreciative audience imaginable, but in numbers about half what they might have been. To-night we shall have a famous house; but we might have had it last night too. To-morrow (knowing by this time what can, of a certainty, be done with "Copperfield"), I had, of course, given out "Copperfield" to be read again. Conceive my amazement and dismay when I find the printer to have announced "Little Dombey"!!! This, I declare, I had no more intention of reading than I had of reading an account of the solar system. And this, after a sensation last night, of a really extraordinary nature in its intensity and delight! Says the unlucky Headland to this first head of misery: "Johnson's mistake" (Johnson being the printer).