"Cut him, cut him, by all means," said everybody at once, and then they talked of Worcester. Fanny had received a letter from him on that very day.
"I understand that Harriette and Meyler are living in a house we once inhabited together," said his lordship's letter. "Do pray tell her from me I wish her joy of her philosophy; but I do not profess any such feelings. I never could inhabit that house, at all events, with any other woman."
This letter would have affected me some time before; but I was now sick and disgusted with the Beauforts and all their proceedings; neither could I reconcile to myself the idea of Worcester having made his father acquainted with the letter he induced me to write; and so lost me my annuity.
Lord Hertford wanted to set me down; but I positively refused. "Well then," whispered his lordship, "you really must pay me a visit at my little private door in Park Lane. You say you are going to the play to-morrow night, and you know you can rely on my discretion. The King dines with me; but His Majesty will leave me before the play is over, and I will open the door for you myself after my people are gone to bed, and you shall find everything ready and comfortable."
"You may then depend on seeing me," said I, and I took my leave.
The next evening Fanny, Julia, and I, were all seated in a private box at Covent Garden by seven o'clock, accompanied by two friends of theirs whose names I have forgotten; and we were, I think, afterwards visited at the Theatre by Lord Rivers.
"Are you hungry?" said I to Julia, just as the curtain dropped.
"Very," they both answered in a breath, and Fanny declared that nothing made her so hungry as sitting out a long play, after hurrying to it before one has half finished one's dinner. I said that we now lived in the age of fairies, and that a good-natured one would this night tap some door with her wand and it should fly open and disclose a magnificent repast, served out on gold and silver, and composed of every delicacy which could possibly be imagined.
"What is the use of putting one in mind of all these good things," said Fanny, "when, for my part, I shall think myself happy if my maid has saved us a bone of mutton, or even half a pint of porter these hard times?"