ns being over, or rather----

Here a loud, double knock, and Emily's entrance cut short my sentence;
and now that she is gone, it is close upon time to dress for dinner. She
bids me tell you that I am going to-morrow to sit to the sun for my
picture for you. I cannot easily conceive how you should desire a
daguerreotype of me; you certainly have never seen one, or you would not
do so; as it is, I think you will receive a severe shock from the real
representation of the face you love so well and know so little....

Emily and I went with the children to the Zoological Gardens the other
day, where a fine, intelligent-looking lioness appeared exceedingly
struck with them, crouched, and made a spring at little Fan, which made
Anne scream, and Emily, and Amelia Twiss, who was with us, catch hold of
the child. The keeper assured us it was only play; but I was well
pleased, nevertheless, that there was a grating between that very large
cat and the little white mouse of a plaything she contemplated.

I have no news to give you, dear H----. A list of our dinner and evening
engagements would be interminable, and not very profitable stuff for
correspondence.

I breakfasted with Mr. Rogers the other morning, and met Lord Normanby,
to whom I preferred a request that he would procure for Henry an
unattached company, by which he would obtain a captain's rank and
half-pay, and escape being sent to Canada, or, indeed, out of England at
all--which, in my father's present condition of health, is very
desirable....

We hear of my sister's great success in Italy, in "Norma," from sources
which can leave us no doubt of it....

Good-bye, dearest H----. Here is a list of my immediately impending
_occupations_--Monday, Emily spends the evening with me, till I go to a
party at Miss Rogers's; Tuesday, we go to the opera; Wednesday, we dine
with the M----s, and go in the evening to Mrs. Grote's; Thursday,
dinner at Mrs. Norton's; Friday, dine with Mrs. C----, who has a ball in
the evening; Saturday, the opera again: and so, pray don't say I am
wasting my time, or neglecting my opportunities.

Yours ever,
FANNY.

CLARGES STREET, Thursday, April 2nd.
DEAREST H----,

I wrote to you yesterday, but have half an hour of leisure, and will
begin another letter to you now. If it suffers interruption, I shall at
any