While they were here, received from ---- the beautiful annual he has bought for me, which is, indeed, most beautiful; and with it, literally a copy of verses, which are _not so bad neither_--only think of that!!! The engravings are from things of Stanfield's, taken on the Rhine; and made my heart ach to be once more in Europe, in the old land where fairy tales are told; in the old feudal world, where every rock, and valley, and stream, are haunted with imaginings wild and beautiful: the hallowed ground of legend history; the dream-land of fancy and of poetry. Put out things for the theatre: dined at three. Colonel ---- called: he brought news of the arrival of a Liverpool packet, and prophesied letters to me. Went to the theatre. Play, Hunchback--house very fine again. Just as I was dressing for the second act, three letters were brought into my room. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I was so much overset by them, that with the strange faculty I have of pouring one feeling into another, I cried so bitterly in the parting scene with Clifford, that I could scarcely utter the words of my part. * * * * * * * * * * _Saturday, 24th._ Our riding expedition having been put off, the day was beautifully bright and clear. Sat stitching and pottering an infinity. My feet got so perished that I didn't know what to do. Wrote journal; practised for an hour; Mr. ---- called. When he was gone, went out with my father. Called at ----'s to order home my gown for dinner-time. Left a card at Mrs. ----'s, and then marched down to the tailor's to upbraid him about my waistcoat, which is infamously ill made.[62] Coming home, met that very odious Mr. ----, who is the perfection of genteel vulgarity. He walked home with us. Dressed for dinner. Mme. ---- did not send my gown home in time: abominable sempstress! so put on my blue, and looked rather dowdy. Found sundry that we knew: Colonel ----; Mr. ----; my favourite aversion, Mr. ----; that signal fool, Mr. ----; Miss ----, who looked like a hair-dresser's wax block; a Miss ----, with lovely feet, and a terrified Bacchante-looking head, _cum multis aliis_. I sat by one Mr. ----, who talked without end, and cleverly enough: indeed, it was rather clever to talk so wonderfully fast and much. After dinner, the party became much larger: Dr. ----, Mr. ----, the ---- (all but ----), that entire self-satisfaction, Mr. ----, Mr. ----, and the knight of the rueful countenance; three singing men, ycleped ----; and a shoal besides. One of the Mr. ---- and Miss ---- sang the duet in the Didone, that dear ---- and ---- used to sing so lovelily. They both had good voices, but the style is but so-soish. Presently, three men sang that sea glee that I remember Lord and Lady ---- teaching me at ----. What a strange faculty of our nature this is, this leading back of our minds to