Here in my little country house on the summit of the hill where Falstaff did the robbery, your words have come to me in the most appropriate and delightful manner. When the story can be read all at once, and my meaning can be better seen, I will send it to you (sending it to Dean Street, if you tell me of no better way), and it will be a hearty gratification to think that you and your good husband are reading it together. For you must both take notice, please, that I have a reminder of you always before me. On my desk, here, stand two green leaves[68] which I every morning station in their ever-green place at my elbow. The leaves on the oak-trees outside the window are less constant than these, for they are with me through the four seasons. Lord! to think of the bygone day when you were stricken mute (was it not at Glasgow?) and, being mounted on a tall ladder at a practicable window, stared at Forster, and with a noble constancy refused to utter word! Like the Monk among the pictures with Wilkie, I begin to think _that_ the real world, and this the sham that goes out with the lights. God bless you both. Ever faithfully yours. FOOTNOTES: [67] The portrait by Mr. Frith is now in the Forster Collection, at the South Kensington Museum. [68] A porcelain paper-weight with two green leaves enamelled on it, between which were placed the initials C. D. A present from Mrs. C. Clarke. 1860. [Sidenote: Mr. Henry F. Chorley.] [69]TAVISTOCK HOUSE, TAVISTOCK SQUARE, W.C., _Friday Night, Feb. 3, 1860._ MY DEAR CHORLEY,