order. Characters: Balmile, or Lord Gladsmuir, COMME VOUS
VOULEZ; Prince Charlie; Earl Marischal; Master of Ballantrae;
and a spy, and Dr. Archie Campbell, and a few nondescripts;
then, of women, Marie-Salome and Flora Blair; seven at the
outside; really four full lengths, and I suppose a half-dozen
episodic profiles. How I must bore you with these
ineptitudes! Have patience. I am going to bed; it is (of
all hours) eleven. I have been forced in (since I began to
write to you) to blatter to Fanny on the subject of my
heroine, there being two CRUCES as to her life and history:
how came she alone? and how far did she go with the
Chevalier? The second must answer itself when I get near
enough to see. The first is a back-breaker. Yet I know
there are many reasons why a FILLE DE FAMINE, romantic,
adventurous, ambitious, innocent of the world, might run from
her home in these days; might she not have been threatened
with a convent? might there not be some Huguenot business
mixed in? Here am I, far from books; if you can help me with
a suggestion, I shall say God bless you. She has to be new
run away from a strict family, well-justified in her own wild
but honest eyes, and meeting these three men, Charles Edward,
Marischal, and Balmile, through the accident of a fire at an
inn. She must not run from a marriage, I think; it would
bring her in the wrong frame of mind. Once I can get her,
SOLA, on the highway, all were well with my narrative.
Perpend. And help if you can.

Lafaele, long (I hope) familiar to you, has this day received
the visit of his SON from Tonga; and the SON proves to be a
very pretty, attractive young daughter! I gave all the boys