In the midst of your colonial seethings and heavings, I suppose you have some leisure to consult equally the hopeful prophets and the dismal prophets who are all wiser than any of the rest of us as to things at home here. My own strong impression is that whatsoever change the new Reform Bill may effect will be very gradual indeed and quite wholesome. Numbers of the middle class who seldom or never voted before will vote now, and the greater part of the new voters will in the main be wiser as to their electoral responsibilities and more seriously desirous to discharge them for the common good than the bumptious singers of "Rule Britannia," "Our dear old Church of England," and all the rest of it. If I can ever do anything for any accredited friend of yours coming to the old country, command me. I shall be truly glad of any opportunity of testifying that I do not use a mere form of words in signing myself, Cordially yours. [Sidenote: Mr. Russell Sturgis.] KENNEDY'S HOTEL, EDINBURGH, _Monday, 14th December, 1868._[98] MY DEAR MR. RUSSELL STURGIS, I am "reading" here, and shall be through this week. Consequently I am only this morning in receipt of your kind note of the 10th, forwarded from my own house. Believe me I am as much obliged to you for your generous and ready response to my supposed letter as I should have been if I had really written it. But I know nothing whatever of it or of "Miss Jeffries," except that I have a faint impression of having recently noticed that name among my begging-letter correspondents, and of having associated it in my mind with a regular professional hand. Your caution has, I hope, disappointed this swindler. But my testimony is at your service if you should need it, and I would take any opportunity of bringing one of those vagabonds to punishment; for they are, one and all, the most heartless and worthless vagabonds on the face of the earth. Believe me, faithfully yours. [Sidenote: Mrs. James T. Fields.] GLASGOW, _Wednesday, December 16, 1868._ MY DEAR MRS. FIELDS,