CHAPTER XXV

"I beg you fifty thousand pardons," bawled Lord Petersham to me one morning from his or some other person's gay barouche, as I stood at my drawing-room balcony; "but, to save time, will you answer me one single question from your window? I only want a yes or a no as I am sure I can take your word."

My house being half in the country, I begged his lordship to make as free as he pleased.

"Did you," asked his lordship, forcing a little, mean-looking man, who was seated next to him, to stand up upon his two feet while I surveyed him, "did you ever see this man in your born days?"

"Never, to my knowledge," was my reply.

"Then you can declare, at all events, that you never made his acquaintance?" asked Petersham.

"Certainly, I can: and your friend will unhesitatingly confirm the truth of what I assert."

"_Tout au contraire,_" said Petersham, "he has been amusing us with an account of a former _petite affaire du coeur_ he had with you."

"He does me honour," I rejoined, "although he knows I was never so completely blessed as to have been in his society."

"That's quite enough," said Petersham, giving me a significant little wink with his left eye, kissing his hand, and driving off, all at the same moment.

I must now return to Lord Worcester, or rather to my house in town, he having left Portsmouth to join his incensed papa and mamma at Badminton.

"I have lost my parents," he wrote in one of his letters. "They refuse to acknowledge me as their son, and yet they attempt to keep me shut up here by force. This I should have resisted and have returned to you last week, but that my mother declares herself ill, and my father asserts that she is not likely ever to recover her late accouchement while her mind is so dreadfully agitated. For my part I can neither eat nor sleep, and both my father and uncle admit that they have tormented me till I am seriously ill. I implore you then, my adored, beloved, darling Harriette to come to me. I never close my eyes in sleep without awaking in the greatest fright and agony, having dreamed that you were taken away from me for ever."

He then went on to beg and entreat of me, if I had the least pity for him, to disguise myself as a countrywoman, or a common servant, in a coloured gown and checked apron, and go in the coach to a certain inn at Oxford, where he would contrive, unknown to his father, who should believe him in his bed, to await my arrival at past twelve o'clock at night, which he said was the hour at which the afternoon-coach got into Oxford. He then made me at least a thousand humble apologies for having wanted me to disguise myself and take all this trouble, assuring me that, if I went to Oxford in my usual style and character, some one or other would probably meet me on the road, and he could not describe what would be his parents' indignation and anger, in case my visit to Oxford came to their knowledge.

* * * * *

Were I to give my readers these letters in Worcester's own expressions, there would be no end to them, since every other word was angel, or adored wife, or beautiful sweet Harriette, or darling sweetest, sweetest darling, dearest dear, dear, dearest, &c., so perhaps they will prefer taking all these sweets at once, that I may proceed quietly with these most amusing and very interesting _Memoirs._

* * * * *

At about three o'clock on the day after I had received this letter from Lord Worcester, as my sister Fanny was standing at her window, pleasing herself with her pretty little daughter Louisa, a hackney-coach stopped at her door, and out of it sprung a light-footed, spruce damsel, clad in a neat, coloured gown, thick shoes, blue stockings, blue check apron, coloured neck-handkerchief, cloth cap and bright cherry-coloured ribbons. In the next minute this bold young woman had given both Fanny and her daughter Louisa a hearty kiss!

"Good gracious, my good woman!" exclaimed Fanny, pushing me gently aside, and, in the next instant, hearing a loud laugh in the room, for I had not observed Julia and Sir John Boyd sitting at the other window, till they joined in our merriment.

"Lord help the woman," said Julia, "what can have put it into her head to appear this beautiful weather in such a costume?"

"It is a new style of travelling dress," said I, "and I am going to introduce the fashion. What do you think of my cap? It cost eighteen-pence. And my blue stockings? But I can't stay gossiping with you fine ladies or I shall lose my place in the stage. However, do just look at my nice, little, bran-new red cloak."

"You don't seriously and really mean to say you are going to travel that figure, and in the broad face of day too?" said Fanny.

"I must! I must! Worcester says if I don't want to be beaten to a mummy by papa Beaufort I must go to Oxford in disguise."

"Disguise, indeed!" said Julia.

"If Fred Bentinck meets a woman of my loose morals in this dress, _il croira que c'est la belle Madeleine!_"

"But where is your bonnet?" asked Sir John Boyd.

"Oh! I cannot afford to buy a bonnet; that would be only half-and-half, a mere vulgar, shabby-genteel, cockney kind of a maid-servant!"

"You will be found out by your tapering waist and large bosom."

"Why, what is the matter with it, Sir John? Is it not very decently covered by this smart, coloured handkerchief?"

"Yes; but it's all too pretty, and your stays are too well made."

Julia's maid-servant, who had not recognised me as I flew past her up the stairs, now entered the room, with a message from my hackney-coachman, who was waiting at the door.

"The coachman, marm, desires me to tell the young woman that he shall expect another sixpence if she does not come down directly."

"Oh laws a mighty! and here I hasn't a got a sixpence in the world more than what's tied up here in this here bag, on purpose for to pay my fare to Oxford," said I, holding up a small red bag.

Julia's maid-servant looked in my face, and seeing everybody ready to laugh, found it impossible to resist joining them.

"Why, the Lord defend me! Miss Harriette, is it really you?" she asked, opening her eyes as wide as possible.

"You see, Sir John, the delicacy of my shape has not stood the least in my way with the coachman, who did not discover the air noble under this costume! But I must be off directly."

"Good-bye! God bless you; mind you write to me directly, and tell me everything that happens to you," said Fanny.

They all gave me a kiss round, for the form of kissing a woman in blue stockings and a check-apron, and I was soon seated in the stage-coach, which was being loaded at the door of the _Green Man and Still,_ or as the Frenchman dated his letter, _Chez l'Homme Vert et Tranquil._

"You're not apt to be sick, are you, my dear?" inquired a fat-faced merry-looking man, with a red handkerchief tied over his chin, who had already, with a lady whom I fancied might be his wife, taken possession of the two best seats.

I assured them that I was a very good traveller.

"Because, my dear, you see, many people can't ride backwards; and there's Mrs. Hodson my wife as is one of them."

"Oh; the young woman is not particler, I dare say," said Mrs. Hodson, with becoming reserve.

In short, not altogether liking the words "my dear," as they had been applied to me by her husband, she thought it monstrous vulgar!

A lady, in a green habit, who was standing near the coach door, now vowed and declared her travelling basket should be taken out of the boot where it had been thrown by mistake, before she would take her seat.

The coachman in vain assured her it was perfectly safe.

"Don't tell me about its safety," cried the angry lady, "I know what your care of parcels is before to-day."

"Come, come, my good lady," said Mr. Hodson, whom I recognised as a London shoemaker of some celebrity, "come, come, ma'am, your thingumbobs will be quite safe. Don t keep three inside passengers waiting, at a nonplush, for these here trifles!"

"Trifles!" burst forth the exasperated lady; "are females always to be imposed upon in this manner?"

"Monsieur le Clerc!" continued the lady, calling to a tall thin Frenchman, in a light grey coat, holding under his arm an umbrella, a book of drawings, an English dictionary and a microscope, "Monsieur le Clerc, why don't you insist on the coachman's finding my travelling basket?"

"Yes, to be sure, certainely," said the Frenchman, looking about for the coachman. "_Allons, cocher, Madame demande son panier_. Madame ask for one litel someting out of your boots directly."

"Did I not desire you to mention, Monsieur le Clerc, when you took my place, that the basket was to go inside?" demanded the lady.

"Yes, _oui,_" answered the Frenchman eagerly. "I tell you, Mr. Cocher, dis morning, six, seven, ninety-five times, madame must have her litel, vat you call---over her knee."

"I'm sorry for the mistake, sir; but it would take a couple of hours to unload that there boot, and I must be off this here instant."

"Come now, aisey there, aisey," bawled out a queer, poor Irishman, with a small bundle in his hand, running towards the coach in breathless haste. "Aisey! aisey! there, sure and I'm a match for you, this time, anyhow in life," continued he, as he stepped into the coach, and then took out his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his face. He was so wretchedly clothed that Mrs. Hodson eyed him with looks of dismay, while drawing her lavender-coloured silk dress close about her person, that it might not be contaminated. I was, indeed, surprised that this poor fellow could afford an inside place.

The lady and her French _beau_, seeing no remedy, ascended the steps of the carriage in very ill humour, and they were immediately followed by a man with much comic expression in his countenance. He wore a would-be dashing, threadbare, green coat, with a velvet collar, and his shirt collar was so fine, and so embroidered, and so fringed with rags, that I think he must have purchased it out of the Marquis of Lorne's cast wardrobe. His little Petersham-hat seemed to have been _remit de nouveau_, for the third time, at least.

"Lord! Mr. Shuffle, how do you do? Who would a thort of our meeting you, in the coach?" inquired Mr. and Mrs. Hodson, addressing him in a breath.

"Delighted to see you both," said Shuffle, shaking hands with them.

"And now pray, Mr. Shuffle, if I may be so bold, what might have brought you up to London? What antics might you be up to, hey? Are you stage-struck as usual, or struck mad by mere accident?"

"Thereby hangs a tale," said Shuffle.

"What! a pig-tail? I suppose you're thinking of the shop."

"Not I indeed," Shuffle observed; "I've done with wig-making these two years; for really it is not in the nature of a man of parts to stick to the same plodding trade all his life as you have done, Hodson."

Hodson replied that he knew his friend Shuffle had always been reckoned a bit of a "genus," and, for his part, he always knode a "genus" half a mile off, by his thread-bare coat, and his shoes worn down at the heels.

"Aprepo!" said Mrs. Hodson, "by-the-by, Mr. Shuffle, you forgot to settle for that there pair of boots before you left Cheltenham six months ago."

"Very true, my dear lady," answered Shuffle, "all very true: everything shall be settled. I have two irons in the fire at this time, and very great prospects, I assure you, only do pray cut the shop just now and indulge me with a little genteel conversation."

"A genteel way of doing a man out of a pair of boots," muttered Hodson, "but I'll tell you what, Mr. Shuffle, you must show me a more lasting trade, of one with more sole in it, before you succeed in making me ashamed of being a shoemaker."

"And pray," continued Hodson, "where's the perpetual motion you were wriggling after so long? and then your rage for the stage, what's become of that? Have you made any money by it?"

"How is it possible," answered Shuffle, "for a man to make money by talents he is not permitted to exert!

"'Sir,' said I, to the manager of the Liverpool theatre, 'I have cut my trade of wig-making dead, and beg to propose myself to you as a first-rate performer.' 'Have you any recommendations?' inquired the manager, eyeing me from head to foot. 'Yes sir,' I replied, 'plenty of recommendations. In the first place, I have an excellent head.'"

"For a wig! a good block, I reckon," interrupted Hodson.

"'In the second place,' Shuffle continued, "'I have the strongest lungs of any man in England.'"

"That is unfortunately the case of my good woman here," again interrupted Hodson.

"'And, as for dyeing, sir,'" still continued Shuffle, "'I have been practising it for these two years.'"

"Upon red and grey hair, I presume?" said the incorrigible Hodson.

"'Sir,' said the Liverpool prig," so Shuffle went on, "'Sir, our company happens to be at this moment complete.' Fifty managers served me the same. At last however I got a hearing, and, as I suspected would be the case, was immediately engaged. The play-bills mentioned the part of Romeo by a gentleman, his first appearance on the stage; but it was a low company and beggarly audience, which accounts for my having been pelted with oranges and hissed off the stage!"

Hodson here burst into a very loud fit of laughter, declaring this was the best joke he ever heard in his life.

Shuffle, without at all joining in his friend's mirth, declared that he had now resigned all thoughts of a profession, the success of which must often depend on a set of ignorant blockheads, and turned his thoughts to love and experimental philosophy.

"I say?" was Hodson's wise remark, looking very significantly at his friend.

"Well sir; what have you to say?" Shuffle inquired.

"Blow me, Shuffle, if you ar'n't a little--" Hodson paused and touched his forehead.

"Don't meddle with the head, friend, that's not your trade. Oh, by the bye," Shuffle continued, "talking of heels, I want to consult you about a new sort of elastic sole and heel, after my own invention: one that shall enable a man to swim along the river like a goose, at the rate of fifteen miles an hour! I have just discovered that the goose owes its swiftness to the shape of its feet. Now, my water-shoe must be made to spread itself open, when the foot is extended, and close as it advances."

"Well done, gentleman," interposed the poor Irish traveller, "this bates the cork jacket anyhow in life!"

"Who the devil are you, sir?" asked Shuffle, "and what business have you to crack jokes?"

"The only little objection that I see to your contrivance," continued Pat, "is that the patent shoe will be just after turning into a clog as soon as it gits under water, good luck to it."

"The devil take me if that warn't a capital joke! So well done, master Pat," said Hodson.

"Is that an Irish wig you have got on your head, Pat?" Shuffle asked, by way of being even with him.

"For God's sake sink the shop, Shuffle, and let's have a little genteel conversation," said Hodson, imitating Shuffle's late affectation of voice and manner.

"Pray what do you Irish know about wig-making?" asked Shuffle, disregarding Hodson.

"And may be you would not approve nather, of their nate, compact little fashion of breaking a head, perhaps?" inquired Pat very quietly.

"Come, come, my comical fellow," said Hodson, "don't be so hot. Mr. Shuffle only meant to remark that it was a pity to wear a red wig over your fine head of hair."

"Arrah, by my sowl! and is it under it you'd have me wear it?" asked the Irishman.

"You're a funny chap! but I loves to see a man in good spirits," Hodson remarked.

"Is it in good spirits then, you reckon me? Sure and you're out there anyhow in life; for the devil a drop of spirits have I poured into me, good, bad or indifferent since yesterday, worse luck to me!"

"What, are you out of employment then?" Mrs. Hodson inquired.

"No my dear lady, in regard to my being employed just now, looking out for work."

Shuffle inquired how long he had left Ireland.

"Not more than a month, your honour; and four weeks out of that time have I been wandering about the great, gawky village of London, up one strate and down the tother, in search of a friend, and sorrow bit of the smallest intelligence can I gain, anyhow in the world, of poor Kitty O'Mara."

"And is that absolutely necessary?" I asked.

"And did I not promise Mistress Kitty, the mother of him, that I would stick by her darling till the breath was clane out of his body? and then, after our death, wasn't it by mutual agreement between Kitty and me, that we should dig each other a nate, tight bit of a grave, and bury each other, in a jontale, friendly manner? so that, what with disappointment, fatigue, and the uncommon insults which have been put upon me lately, sure and I'm completely bothered!"

"And pray, Pat, what takes you over to Oxford?" Hodson asked.

"Sure and I'm just going there, to come back again by the marrow-bone stage."

"But what reason have you for making the journey?" said Shuffle.

"Is it what rasin had I? Havn't I paid for my place more than a week ago, and havn't I lost a good sarvice in them parts, by missing the coach by a trifle of half an hour's oversleeping myself? and did not the proprietor of this same coach promise me the first vacant sate?"

"Well, but having lost your place, why trouble yourself to go down when it is too late?" Hodson inquired.

"And you'd have me chated and diddled out on the fare as well as the service? Bad luck to me!" added Pat, with comic gravity.

"Blow me, if you ain't a funny one," said Hodson, as the coach stopped to set him down in a small village between London and Oxford; "and since you've put me into spirits, I must put spirits into you, so here's a shilling for you, Pat. In for a penny, as I says, in for a pound. Good bye, Shuffle, and I shall thank you to call and settle for that there pair of boots. Come, my good woman, give us your hand. Good bye, my pretty lass," nodding to me, as he and his better half quitted the coach.

Nothing of very great interest occurred during the remainder of our journey, except that Shuffle seemed disposed to hire Pat as his servant. The Frenchman found fault with everything at table, drank _eau sucrée,_ and studied in his dictionary. The lady in the green habit scorned to address even a single syllable to a person in the humble garb I wore, and I never once opened my lips till we arrived at Oxford, and I was set down at a little inn nearly a mile distant from the one where Worcester promised to wait for me. It was almost one o'clock in the morning, it poured with rain, and there was not a star to enliven a poor traveller!

Though the discovery was too late, it was now very evident that I had taken my place in the wrong coach. What was to be done? I inquired the distance of the inn at which Worcester promised to expect me; but for more than a quarter of an hour everybody seemed too busy looking after the luggage and the passengers to attend to a poor girl in a coarse red cloak. At last I contrived to speak to the landlady, who assured me that I must be mad to think of wandering about the streets of Oxford at such an hour and in such weather; that the passengers always used her house, and that in the course of an hour the other passengers would be served, and then the chamber-maid would see about providing me with a bed.

"Impossible," said I, "for I have a person waiting for me at the Crown Inn, and I shall feel much obliged to you, madam, if you will immediately furnish me with a guide to protect me."

"Protect a fiddlestick!" said my landlady. "I've got no time to procure guides at this time of night, indeed;" and she waddled off after the rest of the passengers.

I was left alone in the passage, to watch my travelling-bag, shivering with cold, and wishing the vile red cloak and blue stockings at the bottom of the Red Sea, since it was to them I was indebted that everybody held me in such contempt. As a last resource, I addressed myself to a man in a dirty smock-frock, whom I imagined to be the hostler.

"My good man, where can I procure a safe guide and protector, to walk with me to the Crown Inn?"

"You'd better wait here till to-morrow morning, my dear," answered the man; "for you see it's quite at t'other end of the town, and a man don't care to get wet for nothing."

"But I will give you half a crown, and thank you too, if you will only come with me directly, and bring a lanthorn with you."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the man incredulously. "Pray how comed you to be so rich, hey? Suppose you show us your half-crown?"

"Willingly," said I, taking one out of my little bag, at the sight of which he begged me to wait outside the door, till he joined me from the stable with his lanthorn.

"But you must step out foot, my dear, as I may get home before mistress misses me, you see."

As we hurried on together, while the rain fell in torrents on our heads, I felt half afraid of my strange guide; and asked him every two minutes if he was quite sure he had not mistaken the road.

"No, child," said he, at last, "for here we be safe and sound. This be the Crown Inn."

I was not long in doubt as to the truth of what he said; for, at the door, stood Worcester as large as life, looking eagerly down the road after the carriages. I put my half-crown into my guide's hand, and hastily placed my arm under that of Worcester, who, so little dreamed of seeing me arrive on foot in such a wet miserable condition, that he pushed me rather roughly on one side.

"My dear Mr. Dobbins," said I, for that was the name we were to go by at the Crown, where he believed he was not personally known; "Mr. Dobbins! don't you recognise your dear Mrs. Dobbins?"

"Good God, my love! how came you alone this miserable night?" and Worcester handed me upstairs, all joy and rapture and trembling anxiety lest I should catch cold. In less than a quarter of an hour, thanks to his good care, I was in a warm bed and an excellent supper was served by the side of it, with good claret, fruit, coffee, and everything we could possibly require.

We talked all night long; for we had much to say to each other.

Worcester declared that he looked forward to no hope nor rest until we should be really married.

I entreated him to consider all the inconveniences of such a match. "Your father never will forgive you remember!"

"That I shall deeply regret," answered his lordship; "but I must and will choose my own partner for life. You and I have passed weeks, months, years together, without having had a single quarrel. This is proof positive, at least, that our tempers harmonise perfectly together, and I conceive that harmony of temper between man and wife, is the first and greatest blessing of the wedded state."

I was too frank to deny that I perfectly agreed with him in this particular.

"I was never happy till I knew you," continued Worcester, "and I am sure, as I am of my existence, that you are the only woman on earth to whom I could ever be constant to the end of my life and not break my oath. When all is over, my father must submit to necessity."

"It may not be," said I, mildly. "Nay, it shall not be. Your parents, harsh as they are towards me and my faults, shall not have cause to curse me, neither shall you."

Worcester was greatly agitated; and, when all else failed, tried to laugh me out of my resolution. "We will go to Scotland together, in the mail," said his lordship.

"And who shall be the father to give me away, and be a witness to prove my marriage?" I asked, merely to make a joke of a subject I was tired of treating seriously.

"You shall wear this pretty dress," said Worcester, "and my coachman, Boniface, shall come down to the North with us to give you away. I dare not trust Will Haught; he shall know nothing of our departure, till he has missed us."

"Boniface, of course, must be gaily dressed," said I, "and wear a large nosegay."

"True," proceeded Worcester, "and a white waistcoat."

"Shall the waistcoat be made with pockets and flaps, pray?"

"Why, perhaps, that might look handsomer."

"Very well," said I, "perhaps pockets and flaps, perhaps not. Let that matter rest for the moment, and now, with regard to this long journey to Gretna Green to look for a dirty blacksmith, I think that really will be unnecessary."

"How can it be avoided till I am of age?" Worcester eagerly inquired.

"Why, I have spoken to that most reverend, pious, and learned divine, Lord Frederick Beauclerc, on this important subject, and he declares himself willing to officiate on this occasion, and marry us privately by special licence, providing you agree to grant _les droits du seigneur._"

Worcester inquired what that meant.

"Simply, _les droits du mari_, for the first night."

Worcester, having by this time discovered that I was only laughing at him, appeared deeply wounded and offended with me.

"My love, what is to be done?" I asked. "I, as your friend, your real friend, wish you to be comfortably reconciled to your parents, and, by making me your wife you lose them for ever, without doing me any material good; for I have no ambition nor hankering after rank, and, I confess, my conscience does not reproach me with any particular crime, attached to my present, quiet mode of life, since I have no children; else I should for their sake judge differently. Let us hope the best, enjoy the present, and be merry, pray, or I might as well have remained in town."

By degrees Worcester recovered his spirits, and, perhaps, there never was an hour during our whole acquaintance in which he was so devoted to me, so madly, passionately fond of me, as during my visit to the Crown Inn, which proves how the passion of love is ever increased by difficulties, till it, at last, acquires such a degree of enthusiastic ardour, as persons in the full, easy possession of what they desire can form not the least conception of.

Alas! how fleeting are our moments of happiness! Poor Worcester was obliged to leave me by nine in the morning, after handing me into a hack-chaise; because he could not bear the idea of my being again addressed by any low man who might happen to be fellow traveller, when my dress would induce them to mistake me for a servant.

Just as I had got about a mile from Oxford, one of Worcester's uncles passed my chaise: if I recollect right it was Lord Edward. He stared at me in my old costume as though I had been the ninth wonder of the world. However, I hoped, since I had never in my life spoken to his lordship and merely guessed him to be a Somerset, that he would have remained at least in some little doubt as to my identity.

The next morning's post convinced me of my mistake. Worcester, in a very long, dismal letter, acquainted me that I had been seen, in a very odd, unladylike kind of dress close to Oxford. Worcester assured his father that it was quite impossible, as I certainly should not have gone to Oxford without acquainting him of the circumstance. The duke and duchess condescended to laugh at him as a weak silly dupe to a vile and profligate woman, asked him what good he fancied I could be doing by travelling about in disguise; and why, if it had been good, I looked so confused, and appeared so anxious to hide my face from his uncle, as to have actually covered it with both my hands? His uncle further declared that I was both deformed and ugly, which rendered his infatuation the more absurd.

Worcester, in reply, declared his aunt so very ugly that the man who had chosen her for his wife must for ever give up all pretensions to taste; and then he asked them why they imagined two of the handsomest men of this, and perhaps of any age, Lord Ponsonby and the Duke of Argyll--my readers must excuse my placing Lord Ponsonby first--should have been so much in love with deformity? And, if they were, it was of course a proof that my mind must have been of that superior cast as made ample amends for the defects of my person.

There were two young men at that time on a visit with Her Grace of Beaufort, who is known to have always encouraged a very motherly kindness of feeling towards young men, particularly when they were well looking. Perhaps she wanted them for her daughters; and yet, that beauty soon fades is the cry of most moral mammas. However that may be (and I have not in the least presumed to entertain a doubt of Her Grace's virtue, according to the English acceptation of that word), the two young men I have just now mentioned, and who so vehemently joined the hue and cry against me, were Montagu, the eldest son of a lady in Portman Square, who used to give charitable dinners to the poor chimney-sweepers once a year, and Mr. Meyler, a young Hampshire gentleman, in the possession of very large West India property, of at least five and twenty thousand a year.

This youth had lately become of age, and, as everybody informed me, was very handsome. Worcester assured me that this young sugar-baker, as Lord Alvanly was pleased to call him, expressed himself in such strong terms of disgust in reference to me, that his lordship had been obliged to desire him never to use my name in his presence again.

Meyler however _dédommaged_ himself with his favourite the Duchess of Beaufort, to whom Worcester had presented him when they were both at Christchurch together. He always agreed with that lady, as to the subjugation of her noble son's superior parts; for, said Meyler, "it would be impossible for any man, in his right senses, to be in love with that woman called Harriette Wilson; she may have been better once; but she is now in ill health, spoiled by flattery, and altogether the most disgusting style of woman I know."

"Are you acquainted with her, then?" asked the duchess.

Meyler confessed he had never spoken to me; but added that he saw me every night in my Opera box, and in the round-room afterwards; and, in short, from having often conversed with my acquaintances, he knew just as much about me as if he had been so unfortunate as to have been personally acquainted with me.

This inveterate abuse from a stranger, whom I did not even know by sight, somewhat excited my curiosity, nay more, my emulation perhaps; _car j'avais quelquefois le diable au corps, comme aucune autre._

"If," said I one day to Fanny, "if all this abuse of me could be reconciled to good taste in a gentleman, and this Meyler is really so handsome, it would be worth while changing his dislike into love, _seulement, pour lui apprendre à vivre_. At all events there is novelty in being an object of disgust to any man, just when Worcester has so cloyed me with sweets! Where can one get a sight of Meyler?"

"Sir John Boyd is a relation or particular friend of his," said Fanny; and, on the first opportunity Sir John was consulted.

"No woman can do anything with Meyler in the way of love," said Sir John; "for Meyler really don't know what sentiment means, and that is why I cannot conceive what he is always doing with that fine strapping woman, the Duchess of Beaufort, who appears never so happy nor so comfortable, as when he is perched upon a high stool by her side. Meyler is a mere animal, a very handsome one it is true, and there is much natural shrewdness about him, besides that he is one of the most gentlemanlike young men I know; but you may read his character in his countenance."

"What is that like?" I asked.

"It is beautiful," said Sir John Boyd, "and so peculiarly voluptuous, that, when he looks at women after dinner, although his manner is perfectly respectful, they are often observed to blush deeply, and hang down their heads, they really cannot tell why or wherefore."

"And whom does he love?" I inquired.

"His affections are, I believe, at this moment, divided between a Mrs. Bang, a Mrs. Patten and a Mrs. Pancrass, all ladies of Covent Garden notoriety. Meyler is a hard drinker, a very hard rider, and a good tennis and a cricket player, prides himself on his Leicestershire stud and his old English hospitality, and he is no fool though he hates reading; and that is all I know about him, except that I don't believe he would like to be constant for a single fortnight to the most lovely or accomplished woman on earth. In short, he holds all women very cheap, and considers them as mere instruments of pleasure, with the exception of the Duchess of Beaufort, whom he calls a paragon."

"_En voilà assez,_" said I, "_de votre belle sauvage._ Perhaps you will show him to me some day, not on Ludgate Hill, but at the Opera?"