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Foljambe had been the only one of any great fashion with which I had been acquainted, and the retired habits of their dignity had prevented the display of it so as to occasion me any very particular fears of a failure on my part. In my last visit, too, God knows their afflictions made them little able to dazzle any one by an exhibition of what may be termed high manners.

Here, however, I was called upon to make my first appearance, as it were, upon a theatre royal-I, who had never figured except upon country boards, and little even of that. I had, nevertheless, something within me that told me I should not fail. The self-respect which had not abandoned me at Oxford, where every thing was new, would, I thought, bear me through this trial, not severer in proportion than that I had undergone.

Exclusive of this, the man I had the most, and indeed only cause to fear, had seemed, by his consideration and urbanity, to put all fear to sleep; and as for others, why should I fear them? They were but human, like myself, and if they were illbred enough to despise me for not knowing forms I had never been taught, I felt I could despise them with more justice in my turn, for not having common sense any more than common good nature.

As it was, therefore, I felt bold, and even promised my inquiring disposition some pleasant food in examining the new habits and manners to which

I expected to be introduced. I was even impatient for the dinner hour, and could not be persuaded, by a sort of valet de place whom I had hired, that if I waited half an hour after the time appointed, I should yet find none of the company assembled.

I was in Grosvenor Street exactly as the clock struck six-a dinner hour fashionably late in those days-and found that my valet knew these things, at least, better than myself; for not a creature was in the drawing-room, not even Lord Castleton, whom I at least expected to see prepared to receive his guests. So far from it, the company was more than half assembled before he made his appearance. As they, however, all knew one another, nobody felt any awkwardness but myself.

Both ladies and gentlemen, as they dropt in, levelled their eye-glasses at me, but instantly lowered them on finding that they did not know me, treating me as if I were one of the tables or chairs. Natural benignity told me this was wrong, and I thought not better of these persons of the highest English monde for this sample of their breeding.

While reflecting upon this, as if to relieve me, Granville, whom I had not seen for twelve months, and thought still on the continent, was announced. He knew everybody in the room; and seeing him accost me with his usual friendliness, all the glasses were again pointed at me for a minute, and again

lowered, as if, curiosity being satisfied, I had a right to no more.

At length, my lord himself entered, and by presenting me to several of his guests, gave me a sort of passport to all, and relieved me from the embarrassment of feeling alone in a crowd. What struck me was, that he seemed under no sort of consciousness from having allowed his company to be so long assembled without him; nor did they in the smallest degree appear to think that, being a minister, it was out of the common course of things. I had now been introduced to several lords and gentlemen, and several ladies and gentlewomen, but the inveterate immovability of the English character displayed itself even in this miserable quarter of an hour before dinner; for, as to that repast, nobody seemed to recollect for what purpose he or she was invited; an equanimity which rather surprised me. There was an evident pause for something, which I could not expound.

At length it was explained by the arrival of a lady, seemingly of superior order, and really worth waiting for a being of no ordinary quality or pretensions, in whom the very first glance of the eye and the first vibration of the ear discovered a marked difference and superiority as to dress, manners, and general ton de société, which threw all others into shade. Though not absolutely young, she was eminently beautiful, or rather

handsome, and her form and manner of that peculiar cast to set off impressively the richness of her attire, in which her diamonds seemed only a natural part of herself.

Had this lady been merely outwardly beautiful, I might have been tempted to have exclaimed with Prior

"O! what perfections must that person share,
Who fairest is esteem'd where all are fair!"

But her beauty was the least of her attractions, for her first bloom was past. Yet though, perhaps, thirty years of age, there was a set of features which spoke such nobleness, combined with such frankness, such modest intelligence, and at the same time such self-possession, the effect of constant intercourse with, or rather of presiding in, good company, that you would have been sorry to have exchanged the woman for the girl: for she had all the sparkle of a girl's first impression, with all the ease of deportment which none but a woman can display.

As I was lately from Oxford, and not very long from school, perhaps a little mythological pedantry may be forgiven me, though now a minister's secretary, when I thought I saw in this superior lady the majesty of Juno, the grace of Venus, and the sense of Minerva.*

* In my old age I am tempted to suppress this observation, as pedantic schoolboy nonsense; but as I was scarcely at years of discretion when I made it, I let it stand.

It is the observation, I think, of Chesterfield, that in every company or society there is always some one person who takes a lead-one who by a sort of tacit consent is distinguished from the rest, and whom, par excellence, all are disposed to consider and obey as the lord or lady of the ascendant for the time being. Such certainly was this eminent person.

She seemed to know everybody in the room, and be perfectly at her ease with them; was particularly so with Lord Castleton, who I found was her uncle, and gracious with Granville, who was most profound in his attention to her. This she appeared to receive with good-will, but as if it was entirely her due; and while I was wondering with myself who this queen could be-so surrounded by subjects-judge my surprise, when Lord Castleton advancing, presented me to her as his niece, Lady Hungerford.

From the mere glimpse I had had of her in Binfield churchyard, muffled in her walking disguise, no wonder if I could not recollect her; but now the truth rushed upon me, and association made her of ten times more consequence even than she was from herself alone. Could I indeed forget that interesting bust, in that too interesting surreptitious visit to the summer-house at Foljambe Park?

Yet she wanted not this association to create in me the most pure admiration, which indeed I only shared in common with all others who knew her.

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