One evening, when the court was at Windsor, the Queen asked Townshend where he had dined that day, and he told her with Lord and Lady Trevor. Walpole, who was standing by, said with his usual coarse pleasantry: “My Lord, madam, I think is grown _coquet_ from a long widowhood, and has some design upon my Lady Trevor’s virtue, for his assiduity of late in that family is grown to be so much more than common civility, that, without this solution, I know not how to account for it.” That Walpole was only joking was evident from the fact that Lady Trevor, besides being a most virtuous matron, was very old, and exceedingly ugly. But Townshend, who was eager to take offence, flew into a passion, and replied with great warmth: “No, sir, I am not one of those fine gentlemen who find no time of life, nor any station in the world, preservatives against follies and immoralities that are hardly excusable when youth and idleness make us most liable to such temptations. They are liberties, sir, which I can assure you I am as far from taking, as from approving; nor have I either a constitution that requires such practices, a purse that can support them, or a conscience that can digest them.” He went white to the lips as he said this, his voice shook, and he trembled with rage, and was ready to spring at Walpole. His answer was intended to be offensive. Walpole led a notoriously immoral life, and had lately made himself the talk of the town by his amour with Maria, or Moll, Skerrett, and the caricatures and ballads of the day teemed with the coarsest allusions to this intrigue. But Walpole kept his temper, and, with a shrug of his shoulders, answered Townshend quietly: “What, my Lord, all this for my Lady Trevor!” Townshend would have retorted with heat, but the Queen, who was exceedingly uneasy at the scene, turned the subject with a laugh, and began to talk very fast about something else.