applause when I put it on; I could hardly keep my
countenance at the effect my hat produced. My third dress, my own
favorite, was made exactly like the first, the ample skirt gathered
all round into the stomacher body; the material was white satin,
trimmed with old point lace and Roman pearls, with a most beautiful
crimson velvet hat, a perfect Rubens, with one sweeping white
feather falling over it....

We are spending our holiday of Passion week here for the sake of a
little quiet and fresh air; we had intended going to Dover, but
were prevented. You ask me after my mother: she is pretty well now,
but her health is extremely uncertain, and her spirits, which are
likewise very variable, have so much influence over it that her
condition fluctuates constantly; she has been very well, though,
for the last few days. London, I think, never agrees with her, and
we have been racketing to such a degree that quiet had become not
only desirable but necessary. Thank you for wishing me plenty of
dancing. I have abundance of it, and like it extremely; but I fear
I am very unreasonable about it, for my conscience smote me the
other day when I came to consider that the night before, although
my mother had stayed at a ball with me till three in the morning, I
was by no means gracious in my obedience to her request that I
should spare myself for my work. You see, dear H----, I am much the
same as ever, still as foolishly fond of dancing, and still, I
fear, almost as far from "begetting a temperance in all things" as
when you and I wandered about Heath Farm together.

We met with a comical little adventure the other evening. We were
wandering over the common, and encountered two gypsies. I always
had desired to have my fortune told, so A---- and I each seized
hold of a sibyl and listened to our fates.

After predicting to me all manner of good luck and two lovers, and
foretelling that I should marry blue eyes (which I will not), the
gypsy went up to my father, and began, "Pray, sir, let me tell your
fortune: you have been much wronged, sir, kept out of your rights,
sir, and what belonged to you, sir,--and that by them as you
thought was your friends, sir." My father turned away laughing, but
my mother, with a face of amazed and amazing credulity, put her
ha