Fanny having her carriage at the door I proposed our calling on Julia.
"I am going to take my leave of her," Fanny replied, and we drove immediately to her residence.
Julia, whose health had been very delicate since her last premature confinement, was gracefully reclining on her chaise longue, in a most elegant morning-dress. She expected Napier to dine with her. Sophia was hammering at a little country dance on the pianoforte.
To our inquiry how her curricle-beau went on, she answered, "Oh! he is always driving about this neighbourhood, and I think I have discovered who he is. I believe it to be Lord Berwick; but I am not quite certain. However we are to be introduced to him to-morrow by Lord William Somerset, who has been here this morning, to ask Julia's permission to present a friend. He did not name him, but assured us he was a nobleman of fortune and of great respectability."
We wished her joy and kissed her, and took our leave of Julia, as I afterwards did of Fanny, whose departure made me very melancholy. She was the only sister who cared about me, and we had very seldom, in the course of our lives, been separated from each other. We promised to correspond regularly, and I assured her that when she should be settled at Portsmouth, if she acquainted me that she had a spare bed for me, I would certainly pay her a visit.
"Tell me all about Lord Worcester," said Fanny, "and you may say to him that it is lucky for Colonel Parker his lordship never turned an eye of love on me."
I came home very dull indeed, and was informed that Leinster, who had been waiting for me more than an hour, had just left the house; but a genteel young Frenchwoman was still in my dressing-room. She came to offer herself in the place of my late dame de compagnie, Miss Eliza Higgins.
"Je vous salue, mademoiselle," said I, as I entered my little boudoir. "D'où venez vous?"
She informed me that she had been living with Lady Caroline Lamb.
I liked her appearance very much: it was modest, quiet, and unaffected. What a contrast to that Miss Eliza Higgins! She did not look as if she was twenty; but she assured me, sur son honneur, she was in her twenty-sixth year. I engaged her at once, declined to inquire her character of Lady Caroline, and requested her to come to me the next day.