Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/87

 cried her eyes almost out, so she must have some pathetic power. was so enchanted with her, both on and off the stage, that he took me to call upon her on her arrival in London, and I was very much pleased with the quiet grace and dignity, the excellent bon ton of her manners and deportment. The other morning, too, at Stafford House, I was extremely overcome at my sister's first public exhibition in England, and was endeavouring, while I screened myself behind a pillar, to hide my emotion and talk with composure to Rachel; she saw, however, how it was with me, and with great kindness allowed me to go into a room that had been appropriated to her use between the declamations, and was very amiable and courteous to me.

From her second expedition to London, in 1842, Mademoiselle Rachel brought back a trophy which she prized even more than the Queen's bracelet of the year before. It was a letter from the Duke of Wellington, which we must give in the original French: the grammar outrivals Rachel's own.

She received several visits from the illustrious veteran, and a story went the rounds of fashionable society that once, in conversation with him, Rachel complained of her nerves, upon which he recommended her to employ some baths of eau sale. On Rachel inquiring what degree of saleté would be necessary, the Duke condescended to an explanation, and Rachel then discovered that he meant "salt," not "dirty" water.

We must ask the reader to forgive these numerous quotations. Alas! all we know of Rachel can only be