Do you remember all our talks in that odious office of yours;
my visits to Rock-ferry; my one visit, all in the snow, to Southport;
our excursions into Wales, and through the London streets, and to
Rugby and to Cambridge; and how you plucked the laurel at Addison's
Bilton, and found the skeleton in Dr. Williams's library; and lost
your umbrella in those dark rooms in Trinity; and dined at Richmond,
and saw the old lady looking like a maid of honor of Queen Charlotte's
time; and chatted at the Cosmopolitan; and heard Tom Hughes sing the
"Tight Little Island;" and--But really I must stop, and can only trust
that now at last you will be convinced of my existence, and remember
your promise, and write me a good long letter about everything and
everybody. "The Marble Faun" [manuscript] is now in process of
binding. The photograph came just as I had begun to despair of it, and
I lost not a moment in putting the precious manuscript into my
binder's hands. I've been for a week's holiday at Tryston, and met
several friends of yours: Mr. and Mrs. Tom Hughes, Mrs. and Miss
Procter, Mrs. Milnes. The latter spoke most affectionately about you.
And so did Mrs. Ainsworth, whom I met two days ago. But she says you
promised to write her the story of the Bloody Footstep ["The Ancestral
Footstep "], and have never done it. I'm very fond of Mrs. Ainsworth;
she talks such good nonsense. She told us gravely, the other day, that
the Druses were much more interesting than the Maronites, because they
sounded like Drusus and Rome, whereas the Maronites were only like
marrons glaces, etc.
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