great deal.”  I said, “No; it isn’t the nose.  Perhaps it’s the hair.”  Then he looked rather grave, and said, “Now I understand:  you’ve been playing too many hairs on the piano-forte.”  “No, indeed I haven’t!” I said, “and it isn’t exactly the hair:  it’s more about the nose and chin.”  Then he looked a good deal graver, and said, “Have you been walking much on your chin lately?” I said, “No.”  “Well!” he said, “it puzzles me very much.  Do you think that it’s in the lips?” “Of course!” I said.  “That’s exactly what it is!” Then he looked very grave indeed, and said, “I think you must have been giving too many kisses.”  “Well,” I said, “I did give one kiss to a baby child, a little friend of mine.”  “Think again,” he said; “are you sure it was only one?” I thought again, and said, “Perhaps it was eleven times.”  Then the doctor said, “You must not give her any more till your lips are quite rested again.”  “But what am I to do?” I said, “because you see, I owe her a hundred and eighty-two more.”  Then he looked so grave that the tears ran down his cheeks, and he said, “You may send them to her in a box.”  Then I remembered a little box that I once bought at Dover, and thought I would some day give it to some little girl or other.  So I have packed them all in it very carefully.  Tell me if they come safe, or if any are lost on the way.

    Reading Station, April 13, 1878.

My dear Gertrude,—­As I have to wait here for half an hour, I have been studying Bradshaw (most things, you know, ought to be studied:  even a trunk is studded with nails), and the result is that it seems I could come, any day next week, to Winckfield, so as to arrive there about one; and that, by leaving Winckfield again about half-past six, I could reach Guildford again for dinner.  The next question is, How far is it from Winckfield to Rotherwick? Now do not deceive me, you wretched child!  If it is more than a hundred miles, I can’t come to see you, and there is no use to talk about it.  If it is less, the next question is, How much less? These are serious questions, and you must be as serious as a judge in answering them.  There mustn’t be a smile in your pen, or a wink in your ink (perhaps you’ll say, “There can’t be a wink in ink:  but there may be ink in a wink”—­but this is trifling; you mustn’t make jokes like that when I tell you to be serious) while you write to Guildford and answer these two questions.  You might as well tell me at the same time whether you are still living at Rotherwick—­and whether you are at home—­and whether you get my letter—­and whether you’re still a child, or a grown-up person—­and whether you’re going to the seaside next summer—­and anything else (except the alphabet and the multiplication table) that you happen to know.  I send you 10,000,000 kisses, and remain.

    Your loving friend,