She has company this evening--Bubb Dodington, a gentleman of great wealth and agreeable manners, who controlled six votes in the House of Commons, and passed his life in scheming to buy a peerage with them, in which, a year before his death, he succeeded, but left no heir to inherit it. He was much in the confidence of the princess, and she had sent for him to "spend the day" with her. Dinner is over, the two ladies-in-waiting are present, and now the "children" enter to play a few games of cards with their mother before going to bed. The children are seven in number, of whom the eldest was George, Prince of Wales--a boy of fourteen, of fresh complexion, sturdy and stout in form, and a countenance open and agreeable, and wearing an expression of honesty. Human nature rarely assumes a more pleasing form than that of a healthy, innocent English boy of fourteen. He was such a boy as you may still see in the play-grounds of Eton, only he was heavier, slower, and ruddier than the average, and much more shy in company. He loved his horse, and was exceedingly fond of rural sports; but when lesson-time came--but let his mother speak on that point. The old game of "comet" was the one which the lad usually preferred. The company play at comet for small stakes, until the clock strikes nine, when "the royal children" go to bed. Then the mother leaves her ladies, and withdraws with her guest to the other end of the room, where she indulges in a long, gossipy, confidential chat upon the subject nearest her heart--her son, the presumptive heir to the throne. To show the reader how she used to talk to confidants on such occasions, I will glean a few sentences from her conversations: "I like that the prince should amuse himself now and then at _small_ play; but princes should never play deep, both for the example, and because it does not become them to win great sums. George's real disposition, do you ask? You know him almost as well as I do. He is very honest, but I wish he was a little more forward and less childish at his age. I hope his preceptors will improve him. I really do not know what they are teaching him, but, to speak freely, I am afraid not much. They are in the country, and follow their diversions, and not much else that I can discover." Dodington remarked upon this that, for his part, he did not much regard books; what _he_ most wished was that the prince should begin to acquire knowledge of the world, and be informed of the general frame and nature of the British Government and Constitution, and, without going into minutiæ, get some insight into the manner of doing public business.