he was able to come once more among us.  I am to act Euphrasia on Monday; how I do hate it!  Monday week my father talks of resuming his work again with Mercutio.  Dear me! how happy I shall be! once more speaking the love poetry of Juliet after all these “meaner beauties of the night” that I have been executing ever since he has been ill.  Juliet did very right to die; she would have become Bianca when once she was Mrs. Romeo Montague....  I wrote to Lady Francis about “Katharine of Cleves,” (Lord Francis’s translation of “Henri Trois"), who is once more beginning to lift up her head.  My father thinks it may be done on Wednesday week....  It is now determined that Henry should go into the army, and my mother wants me to besiege Sir John through Lady Macdonald (the general’s general) about a commission for him.  In the evening, not having to be anybody tragical or heroical, I indulged in my own character, and had a regular game of romps with the boys; my pensive public would not have believed its eyes if it could have seen me with my hair all disheveled, not because of my woes, but because of riotous fun, jumping over chairs and sofas, and dodging behind curtains and under tables to escape from my pursuers.  “Is that Miss Kemble?” as poor Mr. Bacon involuntarily exclaimed the first time he saw me.

                              GREAT RUSSELL STREET, December 29, 1831. 
     MY DEAREST H——­,

You shall not entreat in vain, neither shall you have a short answer because you have an immediate one....  I should not have answered you so instantaneously, but that my last account of my dear father was so bad that I cannot delay telling you how much better he is, and how grateful we all are for his restoration to health.  He is released from his bed, of which he must be heartily sick, and comes down to breakfast at the usual time:  of course he is still weak and low, and wretchedly thin, but we trust a little time will bring back good spirits and good looks, though after such a terrible attack I fear it will be long before his constitution recovers its former strength, if indeed it ever does.  He talks of resuming his labors at the theater next Monday week.  Oh! my dear H——­, what a dreadful season of anxiety this has been! but, thank God, it is past.

I had intended that this letter should go to you to-day, but you will forgive the delay of a day in my finishing it when I tell you that I have some hope of its producing a commission for Henry.  Sir John Macdonald, at whose house you dined in the summer with my mother, is now adjutant-general, and I know not what besides; and after my mother and myself had expended all our eloquence in winding up my father’s mind to resolve upon the army as Henry’s profession, she thought the next best thing I could do would be to attack Lady Macdonald and secure the general’s interest.  They happened to call this afternoon, and your letter, my dear H——­, has