Business for other people (and by no means of a pleasant kind) has held me prisoner during two whole days, and will so detain me to-day, in the very agony of my departure for Italy again, that I shall not even be able to reach Gore House once more, on which I had set my heart. I cannot bear the thought of going away without some sort of reference to the happy day you gave me on Monday, and the pleasure and delight I had in your earnest greeting. I shall never forget it, believe me. It would be worth going to China--it would be worth going to America, to come home again for the pleasure of such a meeting with you and Count D'Orsay--to whom my love, and something as near it to Miss Power and her sister as it is lawful to send. It will be an unspeakable satisfaction to me (though I am not maliciously disposed) to know under your own hand at Genoa that my little book made you cry. I hope to prove a better correspondent on my return to those shores. But better or worse, or any how, I am ever, my dear Lady Blessington, in no common degree, and not with an every-day regard, yours. Very faithfully yours. FOOTNOTES: [21] On the occasion of a great meeting of the Mechanics' Institution at Liverpool, with Charles Dickens in the chair. [22] He had also presided two evenings previously at a meeting of the Polytechnic Institution at Birmingham. [23] A character in a Play, well known at this time. [24] "Studies of Sensation and Event." 1845. [Sidenote: The same.] GENOA, _May 9th, 1845._ MY DEAR LADY BLESSINGTON,