as to be able to come over to read this next winter!  Whether I may succeed in this endeavor or no I cannot yet say, but I am trying HARD.  So in the mean time don’t contradict the rumor.  In the course of a few mails I hope to be able to give you positive and definite information on the subject.

“My daughter (whom I shall not bring if I come) will answer for herself by and by.  Understand that I am really endeavoring tooth and nail to make my way personally to the American public, and that no light obstacles will turn me aside, now that my hand is in.

    “My dear Fields, faithfully yours always,

    “CHARLES DICKENS.”

This was followed up by another letter, dated the 13th, in which he says:—­

“I have this morning resolved to send out to Boston, in the first week in August, Mr. Dolby, the secretary and manager of my readings.  He is profoundly versed in the business of those delightful intellectual feasts (!), and will come straight to Ticknor and Fields, and will hold solemn council with them, and will then go to New York, Philadelphia, Hartford, Washington, etc., etc., and see the rooms for himself, and make his estimates.  He will then telegraph to me:  ’I see my way to such and such results.  Shall I go on?’ If I reply, ‘Yes,’ I shall stand committed to begin reading in America with the month of December.  If I reply, ‘No,’ it will be because I do not clearly see the game to be worth so large a candle.  In either case he will come back to me.

    “He is the brother of Madame Sainton Dolby, the celebrated singer.  I
    have absolute trust in him and a great regard for him.  He goes with
    me everywhere when I read, and manages for me to perfection.

“We mean to keep all this STRICTLY SECRET, as I beg of you to do, until I finally decide for or against.  I am beleaguered by every kind of speculator in such things on your side of the water; and it is very likely that they would take the rooms over our heads,—­to charge me heavily for them,—­or would set on foot unheard-of devices for buying up the tickets, etc., etc., if the probabilities oozed out.  This is exactly how the case stands now, and I confide it to you within a couple of hours after having so far resolved.  Dolby quite understands that he is to confide in you, similarly, without a particle of reserve.

    “Ever faithfully yours,

    “CHARLES DICKENS.”

On the 12th of July he says:—­

    “Our letters will be crossing one another rarely!  I have received
    your cordial answer to my first notion of coming out; but there has
    not yet been time for me to hear again....

    “With kindest regard to ‘both your houses,’ public and private,

    “Ever faithfully yours,

    “CHARLES DICKENS.”

He had engaged to write for “Our Young Folks” “A Holiday Romance,” and the following note, dated the 25th of July, refers to the story:—­