A spoken sentence will never run alone in all its life, and is never to be trusted to itself in its most insignificant member. See it _well out_--with the voice--and the part of the audience is made surprisingly easier. In that excellent description of the Spanish mendicant and his guitar, as well as the very happy touches about the dance and the castanets, the people were really desirous to express very hearty appreciation; but by giving them rather too much to do in watching and listening for latter words, you stopped them. I take the liberty of making the remark, as one who has fought with beasts (oratorically) in divers arenas. For the rest nothing could be better. Knowledge, ingenuity, neatness, condensation, good sense, and good taste in delightful combination. Affectionately always. [Sidenote: Mrs. Austin.] PARIS, RUE DU FAUBOURG ST. HONORE, 27, _Friday, Seventh November, 1862._ MY DEAR LETITIA, I should have written to you from here sooner, but for having been constantly occupied. Your improved account of yourself is very cheering and hopeful. Through determined occupation and action, lies the way. Be sure of it. I came over to France before Georgina and Mary, and went to Boulogne to meet them coming in by the steamer on the great Sunday--the day of the storm. I stood (holding on with both hands) on the pier at Boulogne, five hours. The Sub-Marine Telegraph had telegraphed their boat as having come out of Folkestone--though the companion boat from Boulogne didn't try it--and at nine o'clock at night, she being due at six, there were no signs of her. My principal dread was, that she would try to get into Boulogne; which she could not possibly have done without carrying away everything on deck. The tide at nine o'clock being too low for any such desperate attempt, I thought it likely that they had run for the Downs and would knock about there all night. So I went to the Inn to dry my pea-jacket and get some dinner anxiously enough, when, at about ten, came a telegram from them at Calais to say they had run in there. To Calais I went, post, next morning, expecting to find them half-dead (of course, they had arrived half-drowned), but I found them elaborately got up to come on to Paris by the next Train, and the most wonderful thing of all was, that they hardly seem to have been frightened! Of course, they had discovered at the end of the voyage, that a young bride and her husband, the only other passengers on deck, and with whom they had been talking all the time, were an officer from Chatham whom they knew very well (when dry), just married and going to India! So they all set up house-keeping together at Dessin's at Calais (where I am well known), and looked as if they had been passing a mild summer there.