“Midnight.” They have just wished me good-night, after having spent the evening here reading out the newspapers for me, commenting upon them, and exerting themselves to amuse me in a hundred good-natured ways. You would like this same stately old Lady Dorothea. She is really 'Grande Dame' in every respect,--dress, air, carriage, gesture, even her slow and measured speech is imposing, and her prejudices, uttered as they are in such perfect sincerity of heart, have something touching about them, and her sorrowful pity for the mob sounded more gracefully than Kate's enthusiastic estimate of their high deservings. It does go terribly against the grain to fancy an alliance between coarse natures and noble sentiments, and to believe in the native nobility of those who never touch soap! I have had a kind of skirmish with La Henderson upon this theme to-night. She was cross and out of temper, and bore my bantering badly. The fact is, she is utterly disgusted at the turn things have taken in France; and not altogether without reason, since, after all their bluster and bloodshed and barricades, they have gone back to a monarchy again. They barred out the master to make 'the head usher' top of the school. Let us see if he won't be as fond of the birch as his predecessor. Like all mutineers, they found they could n't steer the ship when they had murdered the captain! How hopeless it makes one of humanity to see such a spectacle as this, Harry, and how low is one's estimate of the species after such experience! You meet some half-dozen semi-bald, spectacled old gentlemen in society, somewhat more reserved than the rest of the company, fond of talking to each other, and rather distrustful of strangers; you find them slow conversers at dinner, sorry whist-players in the drawing-room; you are told, however, that one is a President of the Council, another the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and a third something equally important. You venerate them accordingly, while you mutter the old Swede's apothegm about the 'small intelligences' that rule mankind. Wait awhile! There is a row in the streets: a pickpocket has appealed to the public to rescue him from the ignoble hands of the police; an escaped felon has fired at the judge who sentenced him, in the name of Liberty and Fraternity. No matter what the cause, there _is_ a row. The troops are called out; some are beaten, some join the insurgents. The government grows frightened--temporizes--offers terms--and sends for more soldiers. The people--I never clearly knew what the word meant--the people make extravagant demands, and will not even give time to have them granted,--in a word, the whole state is subverted, the king, if there be one, in flight, the royal family missing, the ministers nowhere! No great loss you 'll say, if the four or five smooth-faced imbecilities we have spoken of are not to the fore! But there is your error, Harry,--your great error. These men, used to conduct and carry on