Dear Molly, I'll try and finish this, since, maybe, it's the last lines you 'll ever receive from your attached friend. Three days have elapsed since I put my hand to paper, and three such days, I 'll be bound, no human creature ever passed. Out of one fit of hysterics into another, and taking the strongest stimulants, with no more effect than if they were water! My screeches, I am told, were dreadful, and there 's scarcely one of the family can't show the mark of my nails; and this is what K. I. has brought me to. _You_ know well what I used to suffer from him at Dodsborough, and the terrible scenes we always had when the Christmas bills came in; but it's all nothing, Molly, to what has happened here. But as my Uncle Joe said, no good ever came out of a "mess-alliance." My moments are few so I 'll be brief. The ball was beautiful, Molly; there never was the like of it for elegance and splendor! For great names, rank, fashion, beauty, and jewels, it was, they tell me, far beyond the Court, because we had a great many people who, from political reasons, refuse to go to Leopold, but who had no prejudices against your humble servant; for, strange enough, they have Orangemen here as well as in Ireland! Princes, dukes, counts, and generals came pouring in, all shining with stars and crosses, blue and red ribbons, and keys worked on their coat-tails, till nearly twelve o'clock. There were, then, nigh seven hundred souls in the house, eating, dancing, drinking, and enjoying themselves; and a beautiful sight it was: everybody happy, and thinking only of pleasure. Mary Anne looked elegant, and many remarked that we must be sisters. Oh dear, if they only saw me now! There was a mazurka that lasted till half-past one, for it's a dance that everybody must take out each in turn, and you 'd fancy there was no end to it, for, indeed, they never do seem tired of embracing and holding each other round the waist; but Lord George came to say that the Margravine had finished her whist and wanted her supper, so down we must go at once. James was to take her Supreme Highness, and the Prince of Dammiseisen--a name that always made me laugh--was to take me; but he is a great man in Germany, and had a kingdom of his own till he was "modified" by Bonaparte, which means, as Lord George says, that "he took it out in money." But why do I dwell on these things? Down we went, Molly,--down the narrow stairs,--for the supper was laid out below; and a terrible crush it was, for, strange as it may seem, your grand people are just as anxious to get good places as any; and I saw a duke fighting his way in, just like old Ted Davis at Dodsborough! When we came to the last flight of stairs, the crowd was awful, and the banisters creaked, and the wood-work groaned, so that I thought it was going to give way; and instead of James moving on in front, he pressed back upon us, and increased the confusion, for we were forced forward by hundreds behind us.