We are now getting our Christmas extra number together, and I think you
are the boy to do, if you will, one of the stories.
I propose to give the number some fireside name, and to make it consist
entirely of short stories supposed to be told by a family sitting round
the fire. _I don't care about their referring to Christmas at all_; nor
do I design to connect them together, otherwise than by their names, as:
THE GRANDFATHER'S STORY.
THE FATHER'S STORY.
THE DAUGHTER'S STORY.
THE SCHOOLBOY'S STORY.
THE CHILD'S STORY.
THE GUEST'S STORY.
THE OLD NURSE'S STORY.
The grandfather might very well be old enough to have lived in the days
of the highwaymen. Do you feel disposed, from fact, fancy, or both, to
do a good winter-hearth story of a highwayman? If you do, I embrace you
(per post), and throw up a cap I have purchased for the purpose into
mid-air.
Think of it and write me a line in reply. We are all well and blooming.
Are you never coming to town any more? Never going to drink port again,
metropolitaneously, but _always_ with Fielden?
Love to Mrs. White and the children, if Lotty be not out of the list
long ago.
Ever faithfully, my dear White.
[Sidenote: The Hon. Mrs. Watson.]