Just consider we were 'six miles from a lemon,' as Sydney Smith would
say, and yet we transformed all out of doors, first into an elegant
interior, and then into a conventional stage forest.

A great deal of work is available for other performances, and so we
do not regret it a bit; we propose doing 'As You Like It' again when
you are down here, and meanwhile we give diversified entertainments
which Jack calls variety shows, but which in reality are very chaste
and elegant occasions.

The other night we had a minstrel show, wearing masks of black
cambric, with red mouths painted on them; you should have seen us,
all in a dusky semicircle, seated on boards supported by nail-kegs:
it was a scene better imagined than described. This is certainly the
ideal way to live in summer-time, and we should be perfectly happy
and content if you could only shake off your troublesome cough and
come to share our pleasure. We feel incomplete without you; and no
matter how large our party may grow as the summer progresses, there
will always be a vacant niche that none can fill save the dear little
Saint who is always enshrined therein by all her loyal worshippers,
and by none more reverently than her friend,

PHILIP S. NOBLE.


III. THE KNIGHT OF THE SPECTACLES TAKES THE QUILL.


This paper is writ unto her most Royal Highness, our beloved Gold