“Pray accept my best thanks for the beautiful number of the ‘Portrait Gallery’ you were good enough to send me yesterday. The two first engravings, I think perfect, but the third has (to my eye) a kind of Howe-came-you-so? expression about it, as if he had just taken what Captain Hall calls a north-wester—videlicet, a half tumbler of rum filled up with rum and water.
“I do not know whether your experience leads you far enough to know that favours conferred on the female sex emboldens them to ask for more. If, acquainted with this fact, you will not be surprised that I should make direct application for the boon of a stray cookery-book, should such a thing be lying useless on your floor after undergoing the ceremony of reviewal. I have frequently asked Crofton to beg for me, but he is not yet quite epicure enough to remember the commission—which I assure you, to a very ignorant housekeeper, would be a most desirable possession.
“I was very sorry to hear your interior has been
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“When I see you again, I have still more to say to you, but this is ‘all at present’ from,
“P.S. It might appear impertinent in me to hint at the very talented manner in which the memoirs of the present number are ‘got up.’”
