was all curiosity and anxiety about Lord Francis’ play.  I am afraid the newspapers may not be much inclined to be good-natured about it.  I hope he does not care for what may be said of it.  In the evening, the boys went to the theater, and I stayed at home, industriously copying “The Star of Seville” till bedtime.

Thursday, 12th.—­To the theater to rehearsal, after which I drove to Hayter’s (the painter), taking him my bracelets to copy, and permission to apply to the theater wardrobe for any drapery that may suit his purpose.  I saw a likeness of Mrs. Norton he is just finishing; very like her indeed, but not her handsomest look.  I think it had a slight, curious resemblance to some of the things that have been done of me.  I saw a very clever picture of all the Fitzclarences, either by himself or his brother, George Hayter.  The women are very prettily grouped, and look picturesque enough; the modern man’s dress is an abominable object, of art or nature, and Lord Munster’s costume, holding, as he does, the very middle of the canvas, is monstrous (which I don’t mean for a rudeness, but a pun).  The Right Reverend Father in God (A.F.) is laughably like.  They have insisted on having a portrait of their mother introduced in the room in which they are sitting, which seems to me better feeling than taste.  Their royal father is absent.  I worked at “The Star of Seville” till I went to the theater; as I get nearer the end, I get as eager as a race-horse when in sight of the goal....  The piece was “The School for Scandal;” the house was very full.  I did not play well; I spoke too fast, and perceived it, and could not make myself speak slower—­an unpleasant sort of nightmare sensation; besides, I was flat, and dull, and pointless—­in short, bad was the sum total.  How well Ward plays Joseph Surface!  The audience were delightful; I never heard such pleasant shouts of laughter....  My father says perhaps they will bring out “The Star of Seville,” which notion sometimes brings back my old girlish desire for “fame.”  Every now and then I feel quite proud at the idea of acting in a play of my own at two and twenty, and then I look again at my “good works,” this precious play, and it seems to be no better than “filthy rags.”  But perhaps I may do better hereafter.  Hereafter!  Oh dear! how many things are better than doing even the best in this kind! how many things must be better than real fame! but if one has none of those, fame might, perhaps, be pleasant.  No actor’s fame, or rather celebrity, or rather notoriety, would satisfy me; that is the shadow of a cloud, the echo of a sound, the memory of a dream, nothing come of nothing.  The finest actor is but a good translator of another man’s work; he does somebody else’s thought into action, but he creates nothing, and that seems to me the test of genius, after all.

Friday.—­At eleven to the theater to rehearse “Katharine of Cleves.” ...  We all went to the theater to see “Rob