"Sunday--This very day, at chapel, I did your majesty some service, by tearing six leaves out of the parson's sermon, and shortening his discourse six minutes." If Queen Caroline's young friend really performed such {089}varied and such important services for her, she must have missed him, indeed, when he was absent from home. He gives an instance, in his memoirs, of how much Queen Caroline endured for the sake of her husband, in these words: "She works harder than any of the court drudges in one respect, for she passes seven or eight hours _tête-à-tête_ with the king every day, generally saying what she does not think, and forced, like a spider, to spin out of her own bowels all the conversation with which the fly is taken." The queen's health was undoubtedly poor at this time; but in spite of that, after an acute attack of cold and fever, for which she had twice been bled, George insisted on her going from Kensington to London to celebrate his birthday, and made her accompany him to the opera the same night. To be sure, this was not so inconsiderate as it appears; for George II. thought so little of illness himself that he would rise from a sick-bed to hold a levee when he could scarcely keep up his head, and go back as soon as it was over. He did not see why his wife should not sacrifice herself as he did. She came very near swooning on the morning of the birthday drawing-room, and sent one of her attendants to beg the king to retire, saying: "That she was unable to stand any longer;" but, for all that, he obliged her to attend a crowded ball in the evening, and kept her there until after eleven o'clock. Sir Robert Walpole urged Queen Caroline to take care of herself, assuring her that England would fall into great danger if deprived of her presence, and addressing her as though she was the governing sovereign,--which she was in fact, though not in name.