have to go to the baths. To-morrow I go
into Frankfort on the business, having heard
from the merchant, who has fixed an hour to
see me. He talks of some difficulty, but I
shall work hard, and do everything to show
our gratitude to our dear benefactor. And
if I can conclude the matter on more favourable
terms, and save him some money,
I shall lessen my obligation a little. I
find a gentleman whom I met in the walks,
and who seems to have a sort of interest in
me, is going back to London to-night. I
shall send him what I have written so far,
and he will post it in London to Dora.

Saturday.—The first portion of the log
has gone off. She will have it by Monday,
and I know it will amuse them. She
will read it out.

At twelve to-day, I pass by the grand red
granite building, of a rich handsome stone,
and which is Homburg. It is in the centre of
the town in the street, but has a garden in
front; with a row of orange trees, considered
the noblest in the world. There is
really something grand in the air of these
magnificent strangers, each in his vast green
box, and standing, I suppose, thirty feet
high. The greatest and most tender care
is taken of them: men are watering, washing,
cleaning, coifféing these aristocrats,
morning, noon, and night. They are allowed
to appear abroad during the hot
months only, and when the cooler period
sets in, they are tenderly moved to a vast
palace far off in the woods, built expressly
for them, where they live together all the
winter, with, fires, and blanketing, and
matting, and everything luxurious. The
story runs that they were lost, one by one,
by a certain landgrave, or elector, or grand
duke, who staked them against a hundred
pounds a piece; and now that brings me to
what I have been indirectly fencing off,
and which fills me with a certain dread, as I
think of it. I never felt such a sensation, as
when, after passing through the noble passage
floored with marble, three or four hundred
feet long, where a whole town might
promenade, I found myself in a vast cool
shaded hall that seemed like the banqueting-
room of a palace. It was of noble
proportions, a carved ceiling, and literally
one mass of gorgeous fresco painting and
gold. Noble chandeliers of the most elegant
design hang down the middle, the arches
in the ceiling are animated with figures of
nymphs and cupids, with gardens and
terraces, and the portico furnishing is rich
and solid, and in the most exquisite taste.
From these open other rooms, seen through
arches and beyond the folds of lace curtains,
and each decorated in a different
taste—one, snowy white and gold, another,
pale pink and gold. The floors are parquet
in the prettiest patterns. Servants in rich
green and gold liveries glide about, and the
most luxurious soft couches in crimson
velvets line the walls. What art has done
is indeed perfect and most innocent; but
where nature and humanity gathers round,
standing in two long groups down the room,
it almost appals. For I hear the music,
the faint, prolonged " a-a-a-rr." Then the
clatter and sudden rattle and chinking of
silver on silver, of gold on gold, and the
low short sentences of those who preside
over the rite, and—silence again. As I join
the group and look over shoulders, then I
see that strange human amphitheatre, that
oval of eager and yet impassive faces, all
looking down on the bright green field—
the cloth of gold, indeed. What a sight!
the four magicians, with their sceptres
raised. The piles of gold, the rouleaux, the
rich coils of dollars like glittering silver
snakes, and more dangerous than a snake—
the fluttering notes nestling in little velvet-
lined recesses, and peeping out through
the gilt bars of their little cages. There is
something awful in this spectacle, and yet
there is a silent fascination—something, I
suppose, that must be akin to the spectacle
at an execution.

The preparation, the prompt covering of
the green ground in those fatal divisions,
the notes here, the little glittering pile of
yellow pieces, the solid handsome dollars,
whose clinking seems music, the lighter
florins, the double Fredericks, and the fat
sausage-like rouleaux, which these wonderful
and dexterous rakes adjust so delicately!
Now the cards are being dealt slowly,
while the most perfect stillness reigns, and
every eye is bent on those hands. I hear
him at the end of the first row give a
sort of grunt, "ung!" then begin his
second, and end with a judgment or verdict.
There is a general rustle and turning
away of faces, stooping forward, a marking
of paper, and the four fatal rakes begin
sweeping in greedily gold and notes and
silver—all in confusion, a perfect rabble
—while, this fatal work over, two skilful
hands begin to spout money, as it were, to
the ends of the earth. On the fortunate
heaps left undisturbed come pouring down
whole Danae showers of silver and gold;
and to the rouleaux come rolling over
softly companion rouleaux. Now do eager
fingers stretch out and clutch their prize.