- tell you something about it. I was beautifully
dressed and looked very nice.

We have heard nothing of John for some time now, and my mother has
ceased to express, if not to feel, anxiety about him, and seems
tranquil at present; but after all she has suffered on his account,
it is not, perhaps, surprising that she should subside into the
calm of mere exhaustion from that cruel over-excitement.

Our appeal before the Lords, after having been put off once this
week, will, in consequence of the threatened dissolution of
Parliament, be deferred _sine die_, as the phrase is. Oh, what
weary work this is for those who are tremblingly waiting for a
result of vital importance to their whole fate and fortune! Thank
Heaven, I am liberally endowed with youth's peculiar power and
privilege of disregarding future sorrow, and unless under the
immediate pressure of calamity can keep the anticipation of it at
bay. My journal has become a mere catalogue of the names of people
I meet and places I go to. I have had no time latterly for anything
but the briefest possible registry of my daily doings. Mrs. Harry
Siddons has taken a lodging in this street, nearly opposite to us,
so that I have the happiness of seeing her rather oftener than I
have been able to do hitherto; the girls come over, too; and as we
have lately taken to acting charades and proverbs, we spend our
evenings very pleasantly together.

We are going to get up a piece called "Napoleon." I do not mean my
cousins and ourselves, but that prosperous establishment, Covent
Garden Theatre. Think of Bonaparte being acted! It makes one grin
and shudder.

I have been three or four times to Mr. Pickersgill, and generally
sit two hours at a time to him. I dare say he will make a nice
picture of me, but his anxiety that it should in no respect
resemble Sir Thomas Lawrence's drawing amuses me. I was in hopes
that when I had done with him I should not have to sit to anybody
for anything again. But I find I am to undergo that boredom for a
bust by Mr. Turnerelli. I wish I could impress upon all my artist
friends that my face is an inimitable original which nature never
intended should be copied. Pazienza! I must say, though, that I
grudge the time thus spent. I want to get on with my play, but I'm
afra