the multitudinous buttons.

On Monday, the 14th of June, after getting ready for our projected
excursions, we had an appointment which promised us a great deal of
pleasure. Mr. Augustus Harris, the enterprising and celebrated manager
of Drury Lane Theatre, had sent us an invitation to occupy a box, having
eight seats, at the representation of "Carmen." We invited the
Priestleys and our Boston friends, the Shimminses, to take seats with
us. The chief singer in the opera was Marie Roze, who looked well and
sang well, and the evening went off very happily. After the performance
we were invited by Mr. Harris to a supper of some thirty persons, where
we were the special guests. The manager toasted me, and I said
something,--I trust appropriate; but just what I said is as
irrecoverable as the orations of Demosthenes on the seashore, or the
sermons of St. Francis to the beasts and birds.

Of all the attentions I received in England, this was, perhaps, the
least to be anticipated or dreamed of. To be feted and toasted and to
make a speech in Drury Lane Theatre would not have entered into my
flightiest conceptions, if I had made out a programme beforehand. It is
a singularly gratifying recollection. Drury Lane Theatre is so full of
associations with literature, with the great actors and actresses of the
past, with the famous beauties who have stood behind the footlights and
the splendid audiences that have sat before them, that it is an
admirable nucleus for remembrances to cluster around. It was but a vague
spot in memory before, but now it is a bright centre for other images of
the past. That one evening seems to make me the possessor of all its
traditions from the time when it rose from its ashes, when Byron's poem
was written and recited, and when the brothers Smith gave us the
"Address without a Phoenix," and all those exquisite parodies which make
us feel towards their originals somewhat as our dearly remembered Tom
Appleton did when he said, in praise of some real green turtle soup,
that it was almost as good as mock.

With much regret we gave up an invitation we had accepted to go to
Durdans to dine with Lord Rosebery. We must have felt very tired indeed
to make so great a sacrifice, but we had to be up until one o'clock
getting ready for the next day's journey; writing, packing, and
attending to what we left behind us as well as what was in prospect.

On the morning of Wednesday, June 16th, Dr. Donald Macalister call