The daily appearance in the Park meant much more to the early eighteenth-century ladies than it does to Society dames of the present day. They saw little of their husbands, and were—so far as their home life went—often alone. They read practically nothing; in fact, their intellects were starved. Dress was their one and only idea, and engrossed much of the day, until they went to the Park in their grand equipages drawn by four horses, running footmen preceding, others following. The ignorance of the age was deplorable. The gatherings of the wits and literary men, so famous under Anne, had been dispersed by the strong political force of Sir Robert Walpole. Addison, Swift, and Pope alone remained in prominence. The Duchesses of Marlborough and Buckingham still vied with each other as to who should be the most important factor in Society. The Duchess of Shrewsbury; Miss Lepell, who afterwards married Lord Hervey; Mary Bellenden, the lady who refused the attentions of the Prince of Wales and married Colonel Campbell; Miss Howe, Lord Hervey, Sir Robert Walpole, and Lord Chesterfield, were all familiar figures in the haunts of Hyde Park. Added to these was Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, whose sprightly conversation was in great request in those days. [Illustration: MOLLY LEPELL, afterwards Lady Hervey.] Her tongue and pen had a somewhat sharp edge. She waged war on the ignorance of the day, and her _Letters_ have come down to us full of the culture and cleverness for which she was distinguished. Writing to the Countess of Mar in 1723, she said: “Your old friend Mrs. Lowther is still fair and young, and in pale pink every night in the Park; but after being highly in favour, poor I am in utter disgrace, without my being able to guess wherefore, except she fancied me the author or abettor of two vile ballads written on her ‘dying adventure,’ which I am so innocent of that I never saw.” The explanation of the “dying adventure” is too good to pass over. Mrs. Lowther was a sister of Lord Lonsdale, unmarried, and of high repute. All middle-aged unmarried women were addressed as “Mrs.” in those days, just as wives of our own time look upon that title as their prerogative. She happened to be sitting at breakfast with a friend when a new footman—an awkward country lad—announced “there was one as begged to see her.” “What is his name?” she inquired. “Don’t know,” was the reply. “What sort of a person is he—a gentleman?” “Can’t say rightly.” “Go and ask him his business.” The footman disappeared and returned with a broad grin on his face: “Why, Madam, he says as how—he says he is——” “Well, what does he say, fool?” “He says he is one as dies for your Ladyship.” “Dies for me!” exclaimed the lady, annoyed beyond measure at the smile on the faces of her friend and the footman. “Was there ever such a piece of insolence? Turn him out of my house this minute. And, hark ye, shut the door in his face!”