"What will you say to your uncle?" I asked.
"He be hanged!" was the reply.
At past ten o'clock Lord Charles sent down a groom on horseback to inquire for Worcester, and state that the ladies waited for him to take his part in the quadrilles, which he had studied for that night.
Worcester ran up into his bedroom, and called out from the window, after putting on his night-cap, that he was ill, and in bed, and desired he might not again be disturbed at so late an hour.
It would be tedious to attempt relating all, or even one twentieth part, of the tender proofs of love and affection which Worcester was in the daily, I may say hourly, habit of evincing towards me. His lordship has often watched my sleep in the cold, for half, nay sometimes, during the whole of the night, sitting by my bedside. On an occasion when I was induced to consult a medical man about a trifling indisposition, which was not in the least alarming, Lord Worcester wrote the doctor a most romantic letter, enclosing a fifty-pound note, and declaring that his obligation to him would be eternal if he could contrive to be of the slightest use to me. He would send fur shoes and fur cloaks after me in hot dry weather; because one could never be certain that it would not rain before my return. He took upon him all the care of the house, ordering dinner, &c., from having once happened to hear me say that I did not like to know beforehand what I was to eat.
When the Prince Regent, who then commanded the regiment, came down to the Pavilion Worcester was in despair; for he saw no possible means to avoid visiting His Royal Highness. The dinner, which was given expressly for the officers of the Tenth Hussars, he was obliged to attend. On that occasion, which was the first of his passing an evening from home, after giving me my dinner he sighed over me when he took leave, as though it had been to go to the Antipodes.
Lord Worcester's rapture on his return knew no bounds. "My dear Harriette," said his lordship, "the Prince's band at the Pavillion was so very beautiful, that it would have been impossible for me, who love music to excess, not to have enjoyed it; therefore, as I abhor the idea of enjoying anything on earth of which you cannot partake with me, I went into a corner, where I was not observed, to stop my ears and think only of you. I must now tell you that the Prince has given me a general invitation to go to him every evening, and I have settled my plan, to avoid it. I intend to sham lame, and practise it at home till I can limp very decently and naturally, and then I will wait upon His Royal Highness and tell him that I have a sprain which keeps me in constant pain, and confines me to the house."
Worcester began to practise on the spot, and being in all things a most excellent mimic, particularly when he took off Lord Charles Somerset, or his lordship's brother, whom he always called Cherry-ripe John; why, I know not, for the man is as pale as a ghost.
On the following day, Worcester limped famously, although he had nearly betrayed himself by finding the proper use of his legs from very ennui, when he was, for the third time, addressed by Sergeant Whitaker on the Steyne "respecting of his private consarn."
"How am I to inquire the character of your sweetheart, for God's sake?" Worcester asked the sergeant, with much ill-humour.