a good benefit; unluckily, the second reading of the Reform Bill comes on to-morrow (to-night, by the bye, for it is Monday), and there will be as many people in the House of Commons as in my house, and many more in Parliament Street than in either; it is unfortunate for me, but cannot be helped.  I was going to say, pray for me, but I forgot that you will not get this till “it is bedtime, Hal, and all is well.”  The publication of my play is not to take place till after this Reform fever has a little abated.

Dear H——­, this is Wednesday, the 23rd; Monday and King John and my Constance are all over; but I am at this moment still so deaf with nervousness as not to hear the ticking of my watch when held to one of my ears; the other side of my head is not deaf any longer now; but on Monday night I hardly heard one word I uttered through the whole play.  It is rather hard that having endeavored (and succeeded wonderfully, too) in possessing my soul in peace during that trial of my courage, my nervous system should give way in this fashion.  I had a knife of pain sticking in my side all through the play and all day long, Monday; as I did not hear myself speak, I cannot tell you anything of my performance.  My dress was of the finest pale-blue merino, all folds and drapery like my Grecian Daughter costume, with an immense crimson mantle hung on my shoulders which I could hardly carry.  My head-dress was exactly copied from one of my aunt’s, and you cannot imagine how curiously like her I looked.  My mother says, “You have done it better than I believe any other girl of your age would do it.”  But of course that is not a representation of Constance to satisfy her, or any one else, indeed.  You know, dear H——­, what my own feeling has been about this, and how utterly incapable I knew myself for such an undertaking; but you did not, nor could any one, know how dreadfully I suffered from the apprehension of failure which my reason told me was well founded.  I assure you that when I came on the stage I felt like some hunted creature driven to bay; I was really half wild with terror.  The play went off admirably, but I lay, when my part was over, for an hour on my dressing-room floor, with only strength enough left to cry.  Your letter to A——­ revived me, and just brought me enough to life again to eat my supper, which I had not felt able to touch, in spite of my exhaustion and great need of it; when, however, I once began, my appetite justified the French proverb and took the turn of voracity, and I devoured like a Homeric hero.  I promised to tell you something of our late dinner at Lord Melbourne’s, but have left myself neither space nor time.  It was very pleasant, and I fell out of my love for our host (who, moreover, is absorbed by Mrs. Norton) and into another love with Lord O——­, Lord T——­’s son, who is one of the most beautiful creatures of the male sex I ever saw; unluckily, he does not fulfill the necessary conditions of your theory,