“Her Majesty and Princess Caroline, Lady Charlotte Roussie and Mr. Schütz played their quadrille. In the next room the Prince had the fiddles and danced, and he did me the honour to ask me if I could dance a country-dance. I told him ‘yes’; and if there had been a partner for me, I should have made one in that glorious company--the Prince with the Duchess of Newcastle, the Duke of Newcastle with Princess Anne, the Duke of Grafton with Princess Amelia, Sir Robert Walpole with Lady Catherine Pelham, who is with child--so they danced but two dances. The Queen came from her cards to see that sight, and before she said it, I thought he (Sir Robert Walpole) moved surprisingly genteelly, and his dancing really became him, which I should not have believed if I had not seen, and, if you please, you may suspend your belief until you see the same. Lord Lifford danced with Lady Fanny Manners; when they came to an easy dance my dear duke took her from my lord, and I must confess it became him better than the man I wish to be my friend, Sir Robert, which you will easily believe. Mr. Henry Pelham[48] danced with Lady Albemarle, Lord James Cavendish with Lady Middleton, and Mr. Lumley with Betty Spence. “I paid my court sometimes to the carders, and sometimes to the dancers. The Queen told Lord Lifford that he had not drunk enough to make him gay, ‘and there is honest Mr. Wentworth has not drunk enough’. I told her I had drunk her Majesty’s health; ‘And my children’s too, I hope?’ I answered ‘Yes’. But she told me there was one health I had forgot, which was the Duke and Duchess of Newcastle’s, who had entertained us so well. I told her I had been down among the coachmen to see they had obeyed my orders to keep themselves sober, and I had had them all by the hand, and could witness for them that they were so, and it would not have been decent for me to examine them about it without I had kept myself sober, but now that grand duty was over, I was at leisure to obey her Majesty’s commands. There stood at the farther end of the room a table with bottles of wine for the dancers to drink, and I went and filled a bumper of burgundy and drank the duke’s and duchess’s health to Mr. Lumley, and told him I did it by her Majesty’s command, and then I went to the dancers, and he to the Queen, and told her I had done so. When I came to her again she told me she was glad I had obeyed her commands, and I thanked Mr. Lumley for the justice he had done me in telling it to the Queen, which drew this compliment from him, that he should always be ready to do me justice, or any service in his power. I beg my son may have no occasion to grieve that I have now and again taken a glass too much, for in my cups I shall call upon Mr. Lumley to remember me, and ’tis through these merry companions, or through rich friends that services are done for people.