“Dear Aunt Rachel: The great evening is over! Such dresses, such diamonds--you never saw the like! The smart folks are just like other human beings, and I was not the tiniest bit afraid of them. My own part of the programme went off pretty well, I think. Mr. Koenig had arranged the harmonies and accompaniments of some of our old Manx songs, so I sang Mylecharaine, and they listened and clapped, and then Ny Kiree fo Niaghtey, and they cried (and so did I), and then I imitated some work-girls singing in the streets, and they laughed and laughed until I laughed too, and then they laughed because I was laughing, and we all laughed together. It was over and done before I knew where I was, and everybody was covering me with--well, no, not kisses, as grandfather used to do, but the society equivalent--ices and jellies--which the gentlemen were rushing about wildly to get for me. “But all this is as nothing compared to what is to happen next. I mustn't whisper a word about it yet, so false face must hide what the false heart doth know. You'll _have_ to forgive me if I succeed, for nothing is wicked in this world except failure, you know, and a little sin must be a great virtue if it has grown to be big enough, you see. There! How sagacious of me! You didn't know what a philosopher you had in the family, did you, my dears? “It is to be on the 24th of May. That will be the Queen's birthday over again; and when I think of all that has happened since the last one I feel as romantic as a schoolgirl and as sentimental as a nursery maid. Naturally I am in a fearful flurry over the whole affair, and, to tell the truth, I have hied me to the weird sisters on the subject--that is to say, I have been to a fortune-teller, and spent a 'goolden' half-sovereign on the creature at one fell swoop. But she predicts wonderful things for me, so I am satisfied. The newspapers are to blaze with my name; I am to have a dazzling success and become the idol of the hour--all of which is delightful and entrancing, and quite reasonable at the money. Grandfather will reprove me for tempting Providence, and, of course, John Storm, if he knew it, would say that I shouldn't do such things under any circumstances; yet to tell me I oughtn't to do this and I oughtn't to do that is like saying I oughtn't to have red hair and I oughtn't to catch the measles. I can't help it! I can't help it! so what's the good of breaking one's heart about it? “But I hadn't got to wait for _Hecate et cie_ for what related to the newspapers. You must know, dear Aunt Rachel, that I _did_ meet Mr. Drake at the house of the Home Secretary, and he introduced me to a Miss Rosa Macquarrie, who is no longer very young or beautiful, but a dear for all that! and she, being a journalist, has bruited my praises abroad, with the result that all the world is ringing with my virtues. Listen, all men and women, while I sound mine own glory out of a column as long as the Duke of York's: