“Where did you find the authority for saying that Miss Mitford was bridesmaid at Lady Charles Aynesley’s wedding? She certainly never was in the North till the year 1806; and I take it for granted that in the North the marriage of a Northumberland heiress must have taken place.
“London at this present moment is very full, and appears to be
very gay; but, except at dinners, I see mightily little of its gaiety. Strange to say,
the only extreme bit of dissipation I have been tempted
FORTUNATE RESULT. | 263 |
“Well, I thought it would be the death of a poor wretch in my
exhausted condition! Not a bit of it. I came home—went to bed—slept all
night—and woke the next morning, for the first time this month, refreshed and
unfatigued, and longing to sing while I was shaving myself. What an odd composition a
human being is! The very thing which has set me to rights and made me feel myself, is
the very thing that any doctor would have advised me against, and which
264 | MISS MITFORD'S. |
I shall not leave town till after the eighth. I think then of going to the Deepdene to Mrs. Hope for a few days—thence to the sea, and remaining away a fortnight. I never went to Broadstairs! It was so cold, I could not make up my mind to leave home. If one was to sit shivering in-doors, I thought I had better execute the performance in my own study than in the coffee-room of a sea-side hotel. Let me hear from you.
“‘Rienzi’ did come out on the 9th of October, 1828. It was my mistake in looking for it in November instead of October, in my old diary; but ‘Otto’ was written in 1827. The first copy of the MS. was in my hands on the 26th of November, 1828, and the arrangement with Forrest in 1837 or 38 was merely for the reviewing of the play to suit him. What day do you dine here? Any day except Monday.”