It seemed that in one of the colleges somebody lived who Marie-Celeste would have given more to see, next to the Queen (and, as you know, she had seen her without the asking), than any one else in England, and that was the man who calls himself Lewis Carroll, and who has written those incomparable books, “Through the Looking-Glass” and “Alice in Wonderland.” If it is possible that any little friend of these stories of mine has never happened to have read them, then let me urge you at once to give Aunt Bess or Uncle Jack no rest till both are in your keeping, with your name written very legibly across the fly-leaf of each, so that you can keep them for your very own till you've no more use for any books whatsoever. And while you are about it, why not put in a plea for Kingsley's “Water Babies,” too, which is of the same beautiful dreamland type; and please do not think for a moment that you are too old for any of the three. Why, some one I know, who is well on to forty, just revels in those same three books, and, for that matter, there are some things in them that you cannot fully take in even then. And in this connection perhaps it is fair to tell you, in case you do not happen to know it already, that it is twenty years and more since these books were written; but then of course you are sensible enough to see that that is ever so much more to their credit. Indeed, it was just because they were written so long ago that the visit of which I am about to tell you came to pass. Twenty years before Dorothy's father had been rector of a church there in Oxford, and though Dorothy was only two years old at that time, and her brother Harry but a year and a half older, they had been great pets, babies though they were, with the author of “Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass,” and Mr. Dodgson--for that is Lewis Carroll's real name--had been in and out of Canon Allyn's house almost every day in the week. And what was true of Canon Allyn's house was true of many another house in Oxford where there were children; and so you see it was because of this old-time intimacy with Lewis Carroll that Dorothy had made bold to write and ask if she might bring Harold and Marie-Celeste to call upon him. But for some reason or other Mr. Dodgson no longer cares to see as much of the little people as formerly; in fact, he rather runs away from them when they seek him out; and when he received Dorothy's letter, what did he do but write her that he was very sorry to say that he would not be at home on the afternoon in question, but that if it would be any pleasure to her little friends to see his rooms, she might bring them there and welcome, and that he would leave some old photographs that he thought would interest them ready to her hand in a portfolio on the writing-table.