I laughed incredulously, as I looked at a magnificent figure leaning against the great black horse he rode, and looking like a model of manly vigor and beauty.  But in less than a week from that day Liston died of aneurism; and I suppose that when I met him he was well aware of the death which had got him literally by the throat.]

Saturday, 7th.—­Miserable day of parting! of tearing away and wrenching asunder!...  At eleven we were obliged to go to rehearsal, and when we returned found my mother busy with her packing....  When she was gone, I sat down beside my father with a book in my hand, not reading, but listening to his stifled sobbing; and every now and then, in spite of my determination not to do it, looking up to see how far the ship had moved. (Our windows looked over the Forth.) But the white column of steam was rising steadily from close under Newhaven, and for upward of half an hour continued to do so.  I had resolved not to raise my eyes again from my book, when a sudden exclamation from my father made me spring up, and I saw the steamer had left the shore, and was moving fast toward Inchkeith, the dark smoky wake that lingered behind it showing how far it had already gone from us, and warning us how soon it would be beyond the ken of our aching eyes....  The carriage was announced, and with a heavy heart and aching head, I drove to the theater....  The play was “Francis I.,” for the first time.  The house was very fine; I acted abominably, but that was not much to be wondered at.  However, I always have acted this part of my own vilely; the language is not natural—­mere stilted declamation from first to last, most fatiguing to the chest, and impossible for me to do anything with, as it excites no emotion in me whatever....

                                              EDINBURGH, July 8, 1832. 
     MY DEAREST H——­,

I had just left my father at the window that overlooks the Forth, watching my poor mother’s ship sailing away to England, when I received your letter; and it is impossible to imagine a sorer, sadder heart than that with which I greeted it....  Thank you for the pains you are taking about your picture for me; crammed with occupation as my time is here, I would have done the same for you, but that I think in Lawrence’s print you have the best and likest thing you can have of me....  I cannot tell you at what hour we shall reach Liverpool, but it will be very early on Monday morning....  I am glad you have not deferred sitting for your picture till you came to Liverpool, for it would have encroached much upon our time together.  I remember when I returned from abroad, a school-girl, I thought I had forgotten my mother’s face.  This copy of yours will save me from that nonsensical morbid feeling, and you will surely not forget mine....  You bid me, if anything should go ill with me, summon you across the Atlantic.  Alas! dear H——­, you forget that before a letter from that other world can reach