tack
as his has been the progress must of necessity be slow, we are
inclined to hope, from that very circumstance, that it will be the
more sure.... If you do not return soon, perhaps I shall hear from
you again; pray recollect that it will give me great pleasure to do
so, and that I am very sincerely yours,

F. A. K.

I dressed my Juliet the last time I acted it, exactly after your
little sketch of her....

_Thursday._--Worked at "The Star of Seville." In the evening the
play was "Isabella;" the house very bad. I played very well. The
Rajah Ramahun Roy was in the Duke of Devonshire's box, and went
into fits of crying, poor man!

_Friday, 23d._--It is all too true; John has had a letter from
Spain; they have all been taken and shot. I felt frozen when I
heard the terrible news. Poor Torrijos! And yet I suppose it is
better so: he would only have lived to bitter disappointment, and
the despairing conviction that the spirit he appealed to did not
animate one human being in his deplorable and degenerate land. A
young Englishman, of the name of Boyd, John's sometime friend and
companion, was taken and shot with the rest: it choked me to think
of his parents, his brothers and sisters. Surely God has been most
merciful to us in sparing us such an anguish, and bringing our
wanderer home before this day of doom. How I thought of Richard
Trench and his people! John did not seem to me to be violently
affected, though his first exclamation was one of sharp and bitter
pain: I suppose he must, long ere this, have felt that there could
be no other end to this utterly hopeless attempt.... In the
afternoon I called on Mrs. Norton, who is always to me
astonishingly beautiful. The baby was asleep, and so I could not
see it, but Spencer has grown into a very fine child.

_Monday, 26th._--Went to see how the pantomime did. I did not think
it very amusing, but there was an enchanting little girl (Miss
Poole) who did Tom Thumb, and whose attitudes in her armor were
most of them copied from the antique, and really beautiful. Poor
dear, bright little thing!

My father was in bed when we returned; I went and saw him for a
minute, to tell him how the pantomime had succeeded; it ended with
some