and besides, the one you bought was probably in red, and would not match these.  If you are at all in doubt as to what to do with the (now) superfluous copy, let me suggest your giving it to some poor sick child.  I have been distributing copies to all the hospitals and convalescent homes I can hear of, where there are sick children capable of reading them, and though, of course, one takes some pleasure in the popularity of the books elsewhere, it is not nearly so pleasant a thought to me as that they may be a comfort and relief to children in hours of pain and weariness.  Still, no recipient can be more appropriate than one who seems to have been in fairyland herself, and to have seen, like the ‘weary mariners’ of old—­

  “Between the green brink and the running foam
  White limbs unrobed to a crystal air,
  Sweet faces, rounded arms, and bosoms prest
  To little harps of gold.”

“Do you ever come to London?” he asked in another letter; “if so, will you allow me to call upon you?”

Early in the summer I came up to study, and I sent him word that I was in town.  One night, coming into my room after a long day spent at the British Museum, in the half-light I saw a card lying on the table:  “Rev. C.L.  Dodgson.”  Bitter, indeed, was my disappointment at having missed him, but, just as I was laying it sadly down, I spied a small T.O. in the corner.  On the back I read that he couldn’t get up to my rooms early or late enough to find me, so would I arrange to meet him at some museum or gallery the day but one following?  I fixed the South Kensington Museum, by the “Schliemann” collection, at twelve o’clock.

A little before twelve I was at the rendezvous, and then the humour of the situation suddenly struck me, that I had not the ghost of an idea what he was like, nor would he have any better chance of discovering me!  The room was fairly full of all sorts and conditions, as usual, and I glanced at each masculine figure in turn, only to reject it as a possibility of the one I sought.  Just as the big clock had clanged out twelve, I heard the high, vivacious voices and laughter of children sounding down the corridor.

At that moment a gentleman entered, two little girls clinging to his hands, and, as I caught sight of the tall, slim figure, with the cleanshaven, delicate, refined face, I said to myself, “That’s Lewis Carroll.”  He stood for a moment, head erect, glancing swiftly over the room, then, bending down, whispered something to one of the children; she, after a moment’s pause, pointed straight at me.

Dropping their hands, he came forward, and, with that winning smile of his that utterly banished the oppressive sense of the Oxford don, said simply, “I am Mr. Dodgson; I was to meet you, I think?” To which I as frankly smiled, and said, “How did you know me so soon?”

“My little friend found you.  I told her I had come to meet a young lady who knew fairies, and she fixed on you at once.  But I knew you before she spoke.”