“I want to thank you,” he wrote to me in 1894 from Oxford, “as heartily as words can do it for your true kindness in letting me bring D. behind the scenes to you.  You will know without my telling you what an intense pleasure you thereby gave to a warm-hearted girl, and what love (which I fancy you value more than mere admiration) you have won from her.  Her wild longing to try the stage will not, I think, bear the cold light of day when once she has tried it, and has realized what a lot of hard work and weary waiting and ‘hope deferred’ it involves.  She doesn’t, so far as I know, absolutely need, as N. does, to earn money for her own support.  But I fancy she will find life rather a pinch, unless she can manage to do something in the way of earning money.  So I don’t like to advise her strongly against it, as I would with any one who had no such need.

     “Also thank you, thank you with all my heart, for all your great
     kindness to N. She does write so brightly and gratefully about all
     you do for her and say to her.”

“N.” has since achieved great success on the music-halls and in pantomime.  “D.” is a leading lady!

This letter to my sister Floss is characteristic of his “Wonderland” style when writing to children: 

“Ch.  Ch., January, 1874.

“My dear Florence,—­

“Ever since that heartless piece of conduct of yours (I allude to the affair of the Moon and the blue silk gown) I have regarded you with a gloomy interest, rather than with any of the affection of former years—­so that the above epithet ‘dear’ must be taken as conventional only, or perhaps may be more fitly taken in the sense in which we talk of a ‘dear’ bargain, meaning to imply how much it has cost us; and who shall say how many sleepless nights it has cost me to endeavor to unravel (a most appropriate verb) that ‘blue silk gown’?

“Will you please explain to Tom about that photograph of the family group which I promised him?  Its history is an instructive one, as illustrating my habits of care and deliberation.  In 1867 the picture was promised him, and an entry made in my book.  In 1869, or thereabouts, I mounted the picture on a large card, and packed it in brown paper.  In 1870, or 1871, or thereabouts, I took it with me to Guilford, that it might be handy to take with me when I went up to town.  Since then I have taken it two or three times to London, and on each occasion (having forgotten to deliver it to him) I brought it back again.  This was because I had no convenient place in London to leave it in.  But now I have found such a place.  Mr. Dubourg has kindly taken charge of it—­so that it is now much nearer to its future owner than it has been for seven years.  I quite hope, in the course of another year or two, to be able to remember to bring it to your house:  or perhaps Mr. Dubourg may be calling even sooner than that and take it with him.  You