"What are you afraid of?" said Lord Frederick.
"Why, not of your loose morals: but the fact is, I, who am accustomed to go about with the chosen Apollos of the age, shall get terribly laughed at for being at Vauxhall with such a quiz as you. Not that I doubt your being a very excellent sort of man."
Fred Bentinck laughed with perfect good-humour. He had no vanity, and was so fond of me that I was welcome to laugh at him, and, provided he saw me amused, he was happy.
"I could listen while Harriette talked, though it were for a year together," said Lord Frederick one day to Julia, when I was not present. Indeed he made it a point never to say anything civil to me; but all his actions proved his friendship and regard for me.
At four o'clock in the morning I found Miss Eliza Higgins busy about the new cap which was to kill the Thane.
"Was the Earl of Fife in the gardens?" she inquired, the moment I entered my dressing-room.
The next evening, behold myself and Miss Higgins seated on the sofa before our tea-table, in expectation of Lord Fife. Miss Higgins's new cap would have improved her beauty, had she not diminished its lustre by sitting up all night to finish it; but her fine hair, which was her solitary charm, was suffered to flow over her neck and shoulders in graceful, childish negligence. As for me, the part of second fiddle being altogether new to me, I took the liberty of appearing in my morning dress. Nine was the hour named by Lord Fife, and Miss Higgins had taken out her old-fashioned French watch at least twenty times since she entered the drawing-room, when the house-clock struck that wished-for and lagging hour.
"Is his lordship punctual generally speaking, pray, ma'am?"
"Quite the reverse, I believe," said I, half asleep.