while when we come back, if ever that day comes.  I saw numbers of people whom I knew standing behind the scenes to take leave of us.

I took an affectionate farewell of poor dear old Rye (the property-man), and Louis, his boy, gave me two beautiful nosegays.  It was all wretched, and yet it was a pleasure to feel that those who surrounded and were dependent on us cared for us.  I know all the servants and workpeople of the theater were fond of me, and it was sad to say good-by to all these kind, civil, cordial, humble friends; from my good, pretty little maid, who stood sobbing by my dressing-room door, to the grim, wrinkled visage of honest old Rye....

[That was the last time I ever acted in the Covent Garden my uncle John built; where he and my aunt took leave of the stage, and I made my first entrance upon it.  It was soon after altered and enlarged, and turned into an opera-house; eventually it was burnt down, and so nothing remains of it.]

The Harnesses and their friend Mr. F——­ supped with us.  Mr. Harness talked all sorts of things to try and cheer me; he labored hard to prove to me that the world was good and happy, but only succeeded in convincing me that he was the one, and deserved to be the other.

Friday, 29th.—­On board the Scotch steamer for Edinburgh....  We passed Berwick and Dunbar, and the Douglases’ ancient hold Tantallon, and the lines from “Marmion” came to my lips.  Poor Walter Scott! he will never sail by this lovely coast again, every bold headland and silver creek of which lives in his song or story.  He has given of his own immortality to the earth, which must ere long receive the whole of his mortality....

Saturday, 30th.—­Went to rehearsal....  After dinner Mary Anne, my maid, knowing my foible, came in with her arms full of two of the most beautiful children I ever saw in my life.... [These beautiful children were the daughters of the Duc de Grammont, and were sharing with their parents the exile of the King of France, Charles X., who had found in his banishment a royal residence as ruined as his fortunes in the old Scottish palace of Holyrood.  Ida de Grammont, the eldest of my angels, fulfilled the promise of her beautiful childhood as the lovely Duchesse de Guyche.] We spent a pleasant evening at Mrs. Harry Siddons’s.  Mr. Combe and Macdonald (the sculptor) were there.

Sunday, July 1st.—­ ...  We dined at Mr. Combe’s, and had a very pleasant dinner, but unluckily, owing to a stupid servant’s mistake, my old friend Mr. McLaren, who had been invited to meet me, did not come.  After dinner there was a tremendous discussion about Shakespeare, but I do not think these men knew anything about him.  I talked myself into a fever, and ended, with great modesty and propriety, by disabling all their judgments, at which piece of impertinence they naturally laughed very heartily.

                                              EDINBURGH, July 1, 1832. 
     DEAREST H——­,