happier, perhaps I might comply with more difficulty; so be not sorry, my Susan, nor you, my sweet Fredy, if, bye-and-bye, You should hear me complain.  It will be a very good sign.

Display of loyalty at little Kew.

Aug. 8.-An exceedingly pretty scene was exhibited to-day to their majesties.  We came, as usual on every alternate Tuesday, to Kew.  The queen’s Lodge is at the end of a long meadow, surrounded with houses, which is called Kew green ; and this was quite filled with all the inhabitants of the place—­ the lame, old, blind, sick, and infants, who all assembled, dressed in their Sunday garb, to line the sides of the roads through which their majesties passed, attended by a band of musicians, arranged in the front, who began “God save the King!” the moment they came upon the green, and finished it with loud huzzas.  This was a compliment at the expense of the better inhabitants, who paid the musicians themselves, and mixed in with the group, which indeed left not a soul, I am told, in any house in the place.

This testimony of loyal.satisfaction in the king’s safe return, after the attempted assassination, affected the queen to tears :  nor were they shed alone; for almost everybody’s flowed that witnessed the scene.  The queen, speaking of it afterwards, said,

“O!  I shall always love little Kew for this!”

Miss Bernar, the queen will give you A gown.”

At the second toilette to-day, Mrs. Schwellenberg, who left the dressing-room before me, called out at the door, “Miss Bernar, when you have done from the queen, come to my room.”

There was something rather more peremptory in the order than was quite pleasant to me, and I rather drily answered, “Very well, Mrs. Schwellenberg.”

The queen was even uncommonly sweet and gracious in her manner after this lady’s departure, and kept me with her some time after she was dressed.  I never go rom her presence till I am dismissed; no one does, not even when they come in only with a hurried message,—­except the pages, who enter merely as messengers, and Mrs. Schwellenberg, whose place and illness together have given her that privilege. 368

The general form of the dismission, which you may perhap’s be curious to hear, is in these words, “Now I Will let You go,” which the queen manages to speak with a grace that takes from them all air of authority.

At first, I must confess, there was something inexpressibly awkward to me, in waiting to be told to go, instead of watching an opportunity, as elsewhere, for taking leave before I thought myself de trop:  but I have since found that this is, to me, a mark of honour; as it is the established custom to people of the first rank, the princesses themselves included, and only not used to the pages and the wardrobe-women, who are supposed only to enter for actual business, and therefore to retire when it is finished, without expectation of being detained to converse, or beyond absolute necessity.