jorie'--which I say,
because (as I found) it agrees with one best in that way. If only for
dear Sir Walter's sake, who doated on the Child; and would not let his
Twelfth Night be celebrated till she came through the Snow in a Sedan
Chair, where (once in the warm Hall) he called all his Company down to
see her nestling before he carried her upstairs in his arms. A very
pretty picture. My old Mary said that Mr. Anstey's 'Vice Versa' made her
and a friend, to whom she read it, laugh idiotically too: but I could not
laugh over it alone, very clever as it is. And here is enough of me and
Mary.

Devrient's Theory of Shakespeare's Sonnets (which you wrote me of) I
cannot pretend to judge of: what he said of the Englishwomen, to whom the
Imogens, Desdemonas, etc., were acceptable, seems to me well said. I
named it to Aldis Wright in a letter, but what he thinks on the
subject--surely no otherwise than Mrs. Kemble--I have not yet heard. My
dear old Alfred's Pastoral troubles me a little--that he should have
exposed himself to ridicule in his later days. Yet I feel sure that his
aim is a noble one; and there was a good notice in the Academy {253b}
saying there was much that was fine in the Play--nay, that a whole good
Play might yet be made of it by some better Playwright's practical Skill.

And here is the end of my paper, before I have said something else that I
had to say. But you have enough for the present from your ancient E.
F.G.--who has been busy arranging some 'post mortem' papers.

CX.

WOODBRIDGE: _March_ 6, [1883.]

MY DEAR MRS. KEMBLE,

I have asked more than one person for tidings of you, for the last two
months: and only yesterday heard from M. Donne that he had seen you at
the Address to which I shall direct this letter. I wrote to you about
mid-November, desiring Coutts to forward my letter: in which I said that
if you were in no mood to write during the time of Mrs. Wister's
departure for America (which you had told me was to be November end) you
were not to trouble yourself at all. Since which time I have really not
known whether you had not gone off to America too. Anyhow, I thought
better to wait till I had some token of your 'whereabout,' if nothing
more. And now Mowbray tells me that much, and I will venture another
Letter to you after so long an interval. You must always follow your own
inclination as to answering me--not by any means make a 'Duty' of it.

As usual I have noth