You will probably have read before now that I am going to be everything the Queen can make me.[111] If my authority be worth anything believe on it that I am going to be nothing but what I am, and that that includes my being as long as I live, Your faithful and heartily obliged. [Sidenote: Mr. Alfred Tennyson Dickens.] ATHENAEUM CLUB, _Friday Night, 20th May, 1870._ MY DEAR ALFRED,[112] I have just time to tell you under my own hand that I invited Mr. Bear to a dinner of such guests as he would naturally like to see, and that we took to him very much, and got on with him capitally. I am doubtful whether Plorn is taking to Australia. Can you find out his real mind? I notice that he always writes as if his present life were the be-all and the end-all of his emigration, and as if I had no idea of you two becoming proprietors, and aspiring to the first positions in the colony, without casting off the old connection. From Mr. Bear I had the best accounts of you. I told him that they did not surprise me, for I had unbounded faith in you. For which take my love and blessing. They will have told you all the news here, and that I am hard at work. This is not a letter so much as an assurance that I never think of you without hope and comfort. Ever, my dear Alfred, Your affectionate Father. * * * * * This Letter did not reach Australia until after these two absent sons of Charles Dickens had heard, by telegraph, the news of their father's death. THE END. FOOTNOTES: [107] Mr. Charles Collins was obliged to give up the illustrating of "Edwin Drood," on account of his failing health. [108] A meeting of Publishers and Authors to discuss the subject of International Copyright. [109] Printed in Mackenzie's "Life of Dickens." [110] The General Theatrical Fund. [111] An allusion to an unfounded rumour. [112] Charles Dickens's son, Alfred Tennyson. INDEX. Acrobats, 213 Adams, Mr. H. G., letters to, 15, 208 Agreement, a sporting, 244 Ainsworth, Mr. W. H., 13 Air, Dickens's love of fresh, 169 Allston, Mr. Washington, 42 America, feeling for the "Curiosity Shop" in, 19; projected visit to, 20; description of life in, 24; how Dickens was interviewed in, 26; amateur theatricals in, 28; friends in, 30, 238; voyage home from, 34; second visit of Dickens to, 234, 241, 244-249; Dickens's feeling for the people of, 237; the great walking-match in, 244; second journey home from, 249-252; desire on the part of Dickens to promote friendly relations between England and, 259; letters from, 24, 27, 28, 244-249 "American Notes, The," success of, 38; criticisms on, 38, 43; and see 34, 35, 237 Appleton, Mr., 260 Ashburton, Lord, 46 Austin, Mr. Henry, letter to, 130