To add to my occupations past, present, and to come, not having enough of acting with my professional duties in that line, I am going to take part in some private theatricals.  Lord Francis Leveson wants to get up his version of Victor Hugo’s “Hernani,” at Bridgewater House, and has begged me, as a favor, to act the heroine; all the rest are to be amateurs.  I have consented to this, not knowing well how to refuse, yet for one or two reasons I almost think I had better not have done so.  I expect to be excessively amused by it, but it will take up a terrible deal of my time, for I am sure they will need rehearsals without end.  I do not know at all what our summer plans are; but I believe we shall be acting in the provinces till September, when if all things are quiet in Paris my father proposes going over with me and one or two members of the Covent Garden company, and playing there for a month or so.  I think I should like that.  I fancy I should like acting to a French audience; they are people of great intellectual refinement and discrimination, and that is a pleasant quality in an audience.  I think my father seems inclined to take A——­ with us and leave her there.  A musical education can nowhere better be obtained, and under the care of Mrs. Foster, about whom I believe I wrote to you once a long letter, there could be no anxiety about her welfare.

I showed that part of your last letter which concerned my aunt Dall to herself, because I knew it would please her, and so it did; and she bids me tell you that she values your good-will and esteem extremely, and should do still more if you did not misbestow so much of them on me.

Emily Fitzhugh sent me this morning a Seal with a pretty device, in consequence of my saying that I thought it was pleasanter to lean upon one’s friends, morally, than to be leant upon by them—­an oak with ivy clinging to it and “Chiedo sostegno” for the motto.  I do not think I shall use it to many people, though.

To-morrow Sheridan Knowles dines with us, to read a new play he has written, in which I am to act.  In the evening we go to Lady Cork’s, Sunday we have a dinner-party here, Monday I act Camiola, Tuesday we go to Mrs. Harry’s, Wednesday I act Camiola, and further I know not.  Good-by, dear; ever yours,

F. A. K.

The piece which I have referred to in this letter, calling itself “Bonaparte,” was a sensational melodrama upon the fate and fortunes of the great emperor, beginning with his first exploits as a young artillery officer, himself pointing and firing the cannon at Toulon, to the last dreary agony of the heart-broken exile of St. Helena.  It was well put upon the stage, and presented a series of historical pictures of considerable interest and effect, not a little of which was due to the great resemblance