oysters and set champagne corks flying.  Directly I had done, the screens being whisked off by my people, there was disclosed one of the prettiest banquets you can imagine; and when all the people came up, and the gay dresses of the ladies were lighted by those powerful lights of mine, the scene was exquisitely pretty; the hall being newly decorated, and very elegantly; and the whole looking like a great bed of flowers and diamonds.

Now, you must know that all this company were, before the wine went round, unmistakably pale, and had horror-stricken faces.  Next morning, Harness (Fields knows—­Rev. William—­did an edition of Shakespeare—­old friend of the Kembles and Mrs. Siddons), writing to me about it, and saying it was “a most amazing and terrific thing,” added, “but I am bound to tell you that I had an almost irresistible impulse upon me to scream, and that, if any one had cried out, I am certain I should have followed.”  He had no idea that on the night P——­, the great ladies’ doctor, had taken me aside and said, “My dear Dickens, you may rely upon it that if only one woman cries out when you murder the girl, there will be a contagion of hysteria all over this place.”  It is impossible to soften it without spoiling it, and you may suppose that I am rather anxious to discover how it goes on the 5th of January!!!  We are afraid to announce it elsewhere, without knowing, except that I have thought it pretty safe to put it up once in Dublin.  I asked Mrs. K——­, the famous actress, who was at the experiment:  “What do you say?  Do it, or not?” “Why, of course, do it,” she replied.  “Having got at such an effect as that, it must be done.  But,” rolling her large black eyes very slowly, and speaking very distinctly, “the public have been looking out for a sensation these last fifty years or so, and by Heaven they have got it!” With which words, and a long breath and a long stare, she became speechless.  Again, you may suppose that I am a little anxious!  I had previously tried it, merely sitting over the fire in a chair, upon two ladies separately, one of whom was G——.  They had both said, “O, good gracious! if you are going to do that, it ought to be seen; but it’s awful.”  So once again you may suppose I am a little anxious!...

Not a day passes but Dolby and I talk about you both, and recall where we were at the corresponding time of last year.  My old likening of Boston to Edinburgh has been constantly revived within these last ten days.  There is a certain remarkable similarity of tone between the two places.  The audiences are curiously alike, except that the Edinburgh audience has a quicker sense of humor and is a little more genial.  No disparagement to Boston in this, because I consider an Edinburgh audience perfect.

I trust, my dear Eugenius, that you have recognized yourself in a certain Uncommercial, and also some small reference to a name rather dear