I have nothing to say, but having heard from you this morning, think I
may as well report all well.
We have a most charming place here. It beats the former residence all to
nothing. We have a beautiful garden, with all its fruits and flowers,
and a field of our own, and a road of our own away to the Column, and
everything that is airy and fresh. The great Beaucourt hovers about us
like a guardian genius, and I imagine that no English person in a
carriage could by any possibility find the place.
Of the wonderful inventions and contrivances with which a certain
inimitable creature has made the most of it, I will say nothing, until
you have an opportunity of inspecting the same. At present I will only
observe that I have written exactly seventy-two words of "Hard Times,"
since I have been here.
The children arrived on Tuesday night, by London boat, in every stage
and aspect of sea-sickness.
The camp is about a mile off, and huts are now building for (they say)
sixty thousand soldiers. I don't imagine it to be near enough to bother
us.
If the weather ever should be fine, it might do you good sometimes to
come over with the proofs on a Saturday, when the tide serves well,
before you and Mrs. W. make your annual visit. Recollect there is always
a bed, and no sudden appearance will put us out.
Kind regards.
Ever faithfully.
[Sidenote: Mr. W. Wilkie Collins.]
VILLA DU CAMP DE DROITE, BOULOGNE,
_Wednesday Night, July 12th, 1854._