I never talk much to servants or companions when they come to be hired. If I dislike their faces I tell them I am engaged: if the contrary is the case I desire them to come to me on trial. Wherefore should one ask them, "Can you dress hair?" "Are you quick, good-tempered, honest, handy," &c. &c., when one can as well answer all these questions in their name, oneself, with a single yes?
I passed a restless night. No woman ever felt le besoin d'aimer with greater ardour than I. What could I not have been, what could I not have undertaken for the friend, the companion, the husband of my choice? En attendant, methought, Lord Worcester knew how to love: that was something; but then, where was the power of thought, the magic of the mind, which alone could ensure my respect and veneration?
The next morning my new French maid, who had just arrived, brought me not a letter but a volume, from Lord Worcester: it was not a bad letter. No letter is uninteresting which is written naturally and feelingly.
"Does this young man love me?" I asked of Luttrell, who called on me before I had finished my breakfast, as I presented to him the young marquis's effusion.
"With all his soul, his heart, and his strength," answered Luttrell.
Leinster was my next visitor, and then Lord Robert Manners, dressed in a red waistcoat, corduroy breeches, worsted stockings, and thick shoes, which, I think, had nails in them; yet, in spite of all this, he looked very handsome. The Duke of Wellington came next.
"Why the devil did not your servant tell me that all these people were here?" whispered the merely mortal hero, as he bolted downstairs, and ran foul of Lord William Russell in the passage.
"When do you mean to come and pass a month at Lewes?" asked Lord Robert Manners.
"Your application comes too late, Master Bob," said George Brummell, who had just entered the room. "Harriette is about to bestow her fair hand on the young Marquis of Worcester. But your fingers are covered with ink, man! How happened that?" continued the beau, eyeing his lordship's hands with a look of undisguised horror.