His Honour,[23] then, rising also, with a profound reverence, offered his seat to his Highness; but he positively refused to accept it, and declared that if Mr. Brudenel would not be seated, he would himself retire; and seeing Mr. Brudenel demur, still begging his Highness to take the chair, he cried, with a laugh, but very peremptorily, ‘_Non, non, monsieur! Je ne le veux pas! Je suis opiniâtre, moi; un peu comme Messieurs les Anglais!_’ Mr. Brudenel then reseated himself; and the corner of a form appearing to be vacant, from the pains taken by poor Susan to shrink away from Mr. Orloff, his Highness suddenly dropped down upon it his immense weight, with a force—notwithstanding a palpable and studied endeavour to avoid doing mischief—that threatened his gigantic person with plumping upon the floor, and terrified all on the opposite side of the form with the danger of visiting the ceiling. Perceiving Susan strive, though vainly, from want of space, to glide further off from him, and struck, perhaps, by her sweet countenance, ‘_Ah, ha!_’ he cried, ‘_je tiens ici, je vois, une petite prisonnière!_’ Charlotte, blooming like a budding little Hebe, actually stole into a corner from affright at the whispered history of his thumb ferocity. Mr. Chamier, who now probably had developed what passed in my mind, contrived, very comically, to disclose his similar sentiment; for, making a quiet way to my ear, he said in a low voice, ‘I wish Dr. Burney had invited Omiah here tonight instead of Prince Orloff!’— meaning, no doubt, of the two exotics, he should have preferred the most innocent! The grand duet of Müthel was now called for, and played; but I can tell you nothing extra of the admiration it excited. Your Hettina looked remarkably pretty; and, added to the applause given to the music, everybody had something to observe upon the singularity of the performers being husband and wife. Prince Orloff was witty quite to facetiousness; sarcastically marking something beyond what he said, by a certain ogling, half-cynical, half-amorous cast of his eyes; and declaring he should take care to initiate all the foreign academies of natural philosophy in the secret of the harmony that might be produced by such nuptial concord. The Russian nobleman who accompanied Prince Orloff, and who knew English, they told us, so well that he was the best interpreter for his Highness in his visits, gave us now a specimen of his proficiency; for, clapping his fore-finger upon a superfine snuff-box, he exclaimed, when the duet was finished, ‘Ma foi, dis is so pretty as never I hear in my life!’