Aurora was charming; and it was impossible not to be guided by her wishes in everything.
At that time I was in excellent funds. I had my pay as lieutenant of dragoons (not that it was much, Heaven knows! to cut a figure upon); but I had a good share of prize-money, and a share in brass guns taken in the affairs of Emsdorff and Zierenberg, with a fair slice of a military chest that found its way quietly, sans report, into the pockets of the Scots Greys, all enabled me to take Aurora and Madame Blythe to Vauxhall, Ranelagh, the tea-gardens, the opera, the play, and always with a fair escort of flambeaux to dine with his Grace of Argyle, or to a drum at my Lady Ancrum's; to turn a card at White's when I felt so disposed, and to throw vails to those greedy vultures—the servants—a folly at that time in excess.
As we issued from the house to the carriage for our drive in the park, Aurora responded to the profound bow of a gentleman who rode past.
"That is a young Irishman who was known about town as the Penniless Adventurer," said she; "yet he wrote a charming book on 'The Sublime and Beautiful.'"
"Edmund Burke," I exclaimed, looking after him with admiration; "is that the great Edmund Burke?"
"Even so, with his hair all frizzed up. How oddly he wears it," said Aurora, as we seated ourselves, and Mr. Trot, after shutting the door, perched himself on the footboard behind.
At night Drury Lane Theatre presented a scene of brilliance and splendour to which I had long been unaccustomed. Aurora was exceedingly gay and sparkling with youth, beauty, and jewels—bowing to people of good fashion in almost every box—always happy and with considerable readiness of wit, remarking several turns of the play and peculiarities of personages who were present, and in whom, she thought, I might feel interested.
The first piece, I grieve, my prudish friends, to state was Howe's tragedy of "The Fair Penitent," which drew tears from all the brocaded dames in the boxes.
Mr. David Garrick, the manager, appeared as Lothario in a full-bottomed perriwig, square-cut blue coat with buttons in size like saucers, white rolled stockings and square toed shoes. Mrs. Pritchard was the frail Lavinia; and sarcastic old Macklin, who hated the Scots so much, made up by pads and paint as a youth, played the part of Horatio to the great admiration of the pit, and particularly of one group, among whom Aurora pointed out to me a poet named Churchill and Dr. Johnson the great Lexicographer.
Mr. Garrick's laughable farce of the "Lying Valet" followed. A sentinel of the Foot Guards, with bayonet fixed and musket shouldered, stood at the end of the proscenium during the whole performance, at the conclusion of which, the manager and pretty Mrs. Pritchard, were called before the curtain amid a storm of applause.