The beautiful room was crammed to excess last night, and numbers were turned away. Its beauty and completeness when it is lighted up are most brilliant to behold, and for a reading it is simply perfect. You remember that a Liverpool audience is usually dull, but they put me on my mettle last night, for I never saw such an audience—no, not even in Edinburgh!
I slept horribly last night, and have been over to Birkenhead for a little change of air to-day. My head is dazed and worn by gas and heat, and I fear that "Copperfield" and "Bob" together to-night won't mend it.
Best love to Mamie and Katie, if still at Gad's. I am going to bring the boys some toffee.
The Misses Armstrong
Gad's Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent,
Monday, Feb. 10th, 1862.
My dear Girls,
For if I were to write "young friends," it would look like a schoolmaster; and if I were to write "young ladies," it would look like a schoolmistress; and worse than that, neither form of words would look familiar and natural, or in character with our snowy ride that tooth-chattering morning.
I cannot tell you both how gratified I was by your remembrance, or how often I think of you as I smoke the admirable cigars. But I almost think you must have had some magnetic consciousness across the Atlantic, of my whiffing my love towards you from the garden here.
My daughter says that when you have settled those little public affairs at home, she hopes you will come back to England (possibly in united states) and give a minute or two to this part of Kent. Her words are, "a day or two;" but I remember your Italian flights, and correct the message.
I have only just now finished my country readings, and have had nobody to make breakfast for me since the remote ages of Colchester!