mantua-maker treads upon your petticoat till she unrips the seams; the shoemaker makes you foot it till you wear out your shoes; the mercer dirties your gown; the apothecary opens the window behind you to make you sick. Most of our neighbours will be in town by the next moon, so we shall have no more balls this winter. In town the ladies talk of their stars, but here, ‘If weak women go astray, the moon is more in fault than they.’ Will o’ Whisp never led the bewildered traveller over hedge or ditch as a moon does us country folk; a squeaking fiddle is an occasion, and a moonlight night an opportunity, to go ten miles in bad roads at any time. I must tell your Grace that my Papa forgets twenty years and nine children, and dances as nimbly as any of the Quorum, but is now and then mortified by hearing the ladies cry, ‘Old Mr. Robinson hay sides, and turn your daughter:’ other ladies who have a mind to appear young say, ‘Well, there is my poor Grandpapa; he could no more dance so.’ Then comes an old bachelor of fifty and shakes him by the hand, and cries, ‘Why you dance like us young fellows:’ another more injudicious than the rest, says by way of compliment, ‘Who would think you had six fine children taller than yourself? I protest if I did not know you I should take you to be young.’ Then says the most antiquated Virgin in the company, ‘Mr. Robinson wears mighty well; my mother says he looks as well as ever she remembers him; he used often to come to the house when I was a girl.’ You may suppose he has not the ‘hyp’ at these balls; but indeed it is a distemper so well bred as never to come but when people are at home and at leisure.” [51] Wet-nurse of the Marquis of Titchfield. [52] Son of Sir Robert and brother of Horace Walpole. [Year: 1739] [Page heading: WILLIAM AND GRACE FREIND] In April, 1739, Elizabeth’s cousin, Grace Robinson, sister of “Long” Sir Thomas Robinson,[53] married the Rev. William Freind,[54] son of the Rev. Dr. Robert Freind, Head Master of Westminster School. Soon after the marriage, Elizabeth, who appears to have known Mr. Freind intimately before he married her cousin, writes from “Leicester Street, near Leicester Fields,” to Mr. and Mrs. Freind, “How rare meet now, such pairs in love and honour joyn’d,” and addresses them as “my inestimable cousins.” She states that her family return to Kent shortly, whilst she is going to the Duchess of Portland in White Hall. Elizabeth writes to the duchess on July 1, 1739, having just returned home from her visit--