-gear of each successive Parisian "fashion of the
day." As a girl she had been remarkably slender, but she grew to an
enormous size, without the increased bulk of her person disfiguring or
rendering coarse her beautiful face.]

Thursday I acted Lady Townley, and acted it abominably ill, and was
much mortified to find that Cecilia had got my cousin Harry to
chaperon her two boys to the play that night; because, as he never
before went to see me act, it is rather provoking that the only
time he did so I should have sent him to sleep, which he gallantly
assured me I did. I do not find cousins so much more polite than
brothers (one's natural born plagues). Harry's compliment to my
acting had quite a brotherly tenderness, I think. Friday, New
Year's Eve, we went to a ball at Mrs. G----'s, which I did not much
enjoy; and yesterday, New Year's Day, Henry and I spent the evening
at Mrs. Harry's. There was no one there but Cecy and her two boys,
and we danced, almost without stopping, from eight till twelve.

[The lads my cousin Cecilia called her boys were the two younger sons of
her brother George Siddons, Mrs. Siddons's eldest son, then and for many
years after collector of the port at Calcutta. These lads and their
sisters were being educated in England, and were spending their
Christmas holidays with their grandmother, Mrs. Siddons. The youngest of
these three schoolboys, Henry, was the father of the beautiful Mrs.
Scott-Siddons of the present day. It was in the house of my cousin
George Siddons, then one of the very pleasantest and gayest in Calcutta,
that his young nephew Harry, son of his sister-in-law, my dear Mrs.
Harry Siddons, was to find a home on his arrival in India, and
subsequently a wife in Harriet, the second daughter of the house.]

I am to act Juliet to-morrow, and Calista on Thursday; Friday and
Saturday I am to act Mrs. Haller and Lady Townley at Brighton. I
shall see the sea, that's one comfort, and it will be something to
live upon for some time to come. Next Wednesday week I am to come
out in Bianca, in Milman's "Fazio." Do you know the play? It is
very powerful, and my part is a very powerful one indeed. I have
hopes it may succeed greatly. Mr. Warde is to be my Fazio, for, I
hear, people object to my having my father's constant support, and
wish to see me act _alone_; what geese, to be sure! I won