ing on prosperously. The
theatre is quite full when I play, in spite of the very bad weather, and
I think my employer can afford to pay me, without grudging, my nightly
salary.

I think you are right in saying I am my own best critic; my mother being
gone, I believe I really am so.

I have played, since I last wrote to you, Juliana, in the "Honeymoon," a
rather pretty, foolish part, which I act accordingly; Lady Macbeth,
which I never could, and cannot, and never _shall can_ act; and Juliet,
which, I suppose, I play neither better nor worse than formerly, but
which, naturally, I am no longer personally fit to represent.

I am not very well, for the returning to such labor as this after
thirteen years' disuse of it, and at thirty-seven years of age, is a
severe physical trial, and has, of course, exhausted me very much.
Nothing more, however, ails me than fatigue, and I have no doubt that a
few more nights' "hard use" will enable me to stand steady under my new
load of heavy circumstance.

You have asked me for newspaper reports, and I send them to you. You
know my feeling about such things, but that is nothing to the purpose;
if you can care for such praise or dispraise of me, it is no less than
my duty to furnish you with it, at your request, if I can. You know I
never read critiques, favorable or unfavorable, myself; so I do not even
know what I send you.

Good-bye. Remember me respectfully and affectionately to Lord Dacre, and
believe me ever

Yours truly,
FANNY.

MANCHESTER, Thursday, 25th.
DEAR HAL,

Mr. H. F. Chorley I believe to be a great friend of mine, and an
uncommonly honest man, but I may be mistaken in both points. Your
inquiry about my health I cannot answer very triumphantly. I am not
well, and my feet and ankles swell so before I have stood five minutes
on the stage, that the prolonged standing in shoes, which, though
originally loose for me, become absolute instruments of torture, like
those infamous "boots" of martyrizing memory, is a terrible physical
ordeal for either a tragic or comic heroine--who had need indeed be
something of a real one to endure it.

Some of this trouble is due to general debility, and some to the
long-unaccustomed effort of so much standing, and will, I trust,
gradually subside as I grow stronger and more used to my work....