ient scenic decoration made rather more appropriate the
lines which Shakespeare wrote (only unfortunately Romeo never
speaks them), "Two of the stars," etc. I acted very well, but was
so dreadfully tired at the end of the play that they were obliged
to carry me up to my dressing-room, where I all but fainted away;
in spite of which, as I got out of the carriage at the door of our
lodging, hearing the dear voice of the sea calling me, I tried to
persuade Dall to come down to it with me; but she, thinking I had
had enough of emotion and exertion, made me go in and eat my supper
and go to bed, which was detestable on her part, and so I told her,
which she didn't mind in the least.

_Thursday, August 11th._--A kind and courteous and most courtly old
Mr. M---- called upon us, to entreat that we would dine with him
during our stay in Weymouth; but it is really impossible, with all
our hard work, to do society duty too, so I begged permission to
decline. After he was gone we walked down to the pier, and took
boat and rowed to Portland. The sky was cloudless, and the sea
without a wave, and through its dark-blue transparent roofing we
saw clearly the bottom, one forest of soft, undulating weeds,
which, catching the sunlight through the crystal-clear water,
looked like golden woods of some enchanted world within its depths;
and it looks just as weird and lovely when folks go drowning down
there, only they don't see it. I sang Mrs. Hemans's "What hid'st
thou in thy treasure-caves and cells?" and sang and sang till,
after rowing for an hour over the hardly heaving, smooth surface,
we reached the foot of the barren stone called Portland. We landed,
and Dall remained on the beach while my father and I toiled up the
steep ascent. The sun's rays fell perpendicularly on our heads, the
short, close grass which clothed the burning, stony soil was as
slippery as glass with the heat, and I have seldom had a harder
piece of exercise than climbing that rock, from the summit of which
one wide expanse of dazzling water and glaring white cliffs, that
scorched one's eyeballs, was all we had for our reward. To be sure,
exertion is a pleasure in itself, and when one's strength serves
one's courage, the greater the exertion the greater the pleasure.
We saw below us a railroad c