No _carte_ has yet been done of me, that does real justice to my _smile_; and so I hardly like, you see, to send you one. However, I'll consider if I will or not--meanwhile, I send a little thing to give you an idea of what I look like when I'm lecturing. The merest sketch, you will allow--yet still I think there's something grand in the expression of the brow and in the action of the hand.
Have you read my fairy tale in _Aunt Judy's Magazine?_ If you have you will not fail to discover what I mean when I say "Bruno yesterday came to remind me that _he_ was my god-son!"--on the ground that I "gave him a name"!
P.S.--I would send, if I were not too shy, the same message to "Haly" that she (though I do not deserve it, not I!) has sent through her sister to me. My best love to yourself--to your Mother my kindest regards--to your small, fat, impertinent, ignorant brother my hatred. I think that is all.
[Illustration: What I look like when I'm Lecturing. _From a drawing, by Lewis Carroll._]
My dear Maggie,--I am a very bad correspondent, I fear, but I hope you won't leave off writing to me on that account. I got the little book safe, and will do my best about putting my name in, if I can only manage to remember what day my birthday is--but one forgets these things so easily.
Somebody told me (a little bird, I suppose) that you had been having better photographs done of yourselves. If so, I hope you will let me buy copies. Fanny will pay you for them. But, oh Maggie, how _can_ you ask for a better one of me than the one I sent! It is one of the best ever done! Such grace, such dignity, such benevolence, such--as a great secret (please don't repeat it) the _Queen_ sent to ask for a copy of it, but as it is against my rule to give in such a case, I was obliged to answer--
"Mr. Dodgson presents his compliments to her Majesty, and regrets to say that his rule is never to give his photograph except to _young_ ladies." I am told she was annoyed about it, and said, "I'm not so old as all that comes to!" and one doesn't like to annoy Queens; but really I couldn't help it, you know.
I will conclude this chapter with some reminiscences of Lewis Carroll, which have been kindly sent me by an old child-friend of his, Mrs. Maitland, daughter of the late Rev. E.A. Litton, Rector of Naunton, and formerly Fellow of Oriel College and Vice-Principal of Saint Edmund's Hall:--