Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool, Friday Night, Aug. 20th, 1858.
I received your welcome and interesting letter to-day, and I write you a very hurried and bad reply; but it is after the reading, and you will take the will for the deed under these trying circumstances, I know.
We have had a tremendous night; the largest house I have ever had since I first began—two thousand three hundred people. To-morrow afternoon, at three, I read again.
My cold has been oppressive, and is not yet gone. I have been very hard to sleep too, and last night I was all but sleepless. This morning I was very dull and seedy; but I got a good walk, and picked up again. It has been blowing all day, and I fear we shall have a sick passage over to Dublin to-morrow night.
Tell Mamie (with my dear love to her and Katie) that I will write to her from Dublin—probably on Sunday. Tell her too that the stories she told me in her letter were not only capital stories in themselves, but excellently told too.
What Arthur's state has been to-night—he, John, Berry, and Boylett, all taking money and going mad together—you cannot imagine. They turned away hundreds, sold all the books, rolled on the ground of my room knee-deep in checks, and made a perfect pantomime of the whole thing. He has kept quite well, I am happy to say, and sends a hundred loves.
In great haste and fatigue.
Ever affectionately.
Miss Dickens.
Morrison's Hotel, Dublin, Monday, Aug. 23rd, 1858.