With Mary Bellenden was her sister (or cousin), Margaret Bellenden, who was only a little less lovely, but of a more pensive type of beauty. Another maid of honour was Mary Lepel, the daughter of General Lepel, and if we may believe not only courtiers like Chesterfield and Bath, but independent critics like Gay, Pope and Voltaire, she was one of the most charming of women. She was of a more stately style of beauty than Mary Bellenden, her spirits were not so irrepressible, but she had vivacity and great good sense, which, together with her rare power of pleasing, won for her the admiration of all. Chesterfield writes of her: “She has been bred all her life at Courts, of which she has acquired all the easy good breeding and politeness without the frivolousness. She has all the reading that a woman should have, and more than any woman need have; for she understands Latin perfectly well, though she wisely conceals it. No woman ever had more than she has _le ton de la parfaitement bonne compagnie, les manières engageantes et le je ne sçais quoi qui plaît_”. Pretty Bridget Carteret, _petite_ and fair, a niece of Lord Carteret, was another maid of honour. Prim, pale Margaret Meadows was the oldest of them all, and did her best to keep her younger colleagues in order. She had a difficult task with one of them, giddy Sophia Howe. This young lady was the daughter of John Howe, by Ruperta, a natural daughter of Prince Rupert, brother of the old Electress Sophia; perhaps it was this relationship which led the Princess of Wales to appoint Sophia as one of her maids of honour. She was exceedingly gay and flighty, very fond of admiration, and so sprightly that she was laughing all the time, even in church. Once the Duchess of St. Albans chid her severely for giggling in the Chapel Royal, and told her “she could not do a worse thing,” to which she saucily answered: “I beg your Grace’s pardon, I can do a great many worse things”.