Without ceremony he announced to the astonished Princess that her establishment in that house was from that moment dismissed; that she must instantly repair to the seclusion of Cranbourne Lodge; and that the newly-appointed ladies of her household were in the next apartment, ready to wait upon and accompany her. The Princess was astonished, but she was wonderfully self-possessed, and her presence of mind, helped by her love for a little romantic adventure, admirably served her on this occasion. She requested a few minutes’ respite, that she might retire, take leave of her now dismissed ladies, and superintend some preparations for departure. The Prince acquiesced, and leaving the new ladies in charge of the Princess, returned to Carlton House to dress for a dinner _en ville_. He was hardly gone when the Princess was gone too. Silently and swiftly descending the stairs, she issued from the doors, and in half a minute stood alone upon the pavement of Cockspur Street. Lord Brougham says: ‘It was a fine evening in July, about the hour of seven, when’--he adds with a sort of contempt for people of the lower order, and indeed with much inaccuracy to boot--‘when the streets were deserted by _all persons of condition_.’ From the old stand at the bottom of the Haymarket she called a coach, whose lucky driver (Higgins) obeyed the summons, and having handed the heiress of England into the damp straw of his dirty and rickety vehicle, listened to the order to drive to the Princess of Wales’s in Connaught Place--to be quick, and he should not have to regret it. The guileless Higgins concluded that he was taking a lady’s lady out to tea, and that the maid of one establishment was going to make an evening of it with the maids of another. Unconscious that he was contributing in his own person to the history of England on that eventful summer’s evening, Higgins in due course of time reached Connaught Place, and when he heard, to the inquiry of his ‘fare’ whether her mother was at home, that the page answered, ‘No, your Royal Highness, the Princess of Wales is at Blackheath,’ he became proudly sagacious of _largesse_ to come, and was convinced that he had been a right royal coachman that night, by token that he received three guineas for his honorarium.