The eldest, Lady de Lisle, had undoubted claims to good looks, but much less so than her sisters. Eliza, Countess of Erroll, was remarkable for her unusual colouring; she had auburn hair, with eyes of hazel brown to match. Augusta Kennedy Erskine, afterwards Lady Frederick Gordon, was a blonde, very graceful in demeanour, and playful in manner. On one occasion when, as a young girl, Augusta came into the room hastily, and made a little curtsey (for curtsies were not then obsolete), my governess, Miss Richardson, told me that she was a perfect likeness of her mother. Lady Mary Fox was more comely than strictly beautiful, but she had a captivating smile, and a voice whose tones were sufficiently musical, I should conjecture, to rival those of Mrs Jordan herself. The youngest was my sister’s greatest friend, Amelia, afterwards Lady Falkland, who might have passed for a Spaniard, for her hair was indeed raven black, an epithet so often misapplied; but Amelia’s dancing ringlets had a shade over them like the bloom on the feathers of that bird, and her eyes were soft liquid black. I remember seeing her in her wedding-dress (my sister was her bridesmaid), crowned with flowering myrtle, placed there by Queen Adelaide’s own hand—the bridal chaplet in Germany. But I have made a long digression, and must return to the first days of the reign of King William IV. [Sidenote: “CADDY” MAID OF HONOUR] Amelia Fitzclarence went to the Queen and asked her as a favour to appoint Caroline, or as she was always called, “Caddy” Boyle to be one of her maids of honour, upon which her Majesty replied, with a kiss, that she had already determined on that appointment, and that she had caused Caddy to be informed that she was the first chosen on the list. It may easily be believed that this appointment occasioned great excitement in our family, and the salary of the maid of honour appeared in my eyes as a sum of fabulous riches, and my sister to have become suddenly a personage of great importance, for she had now a limited “Household” of her own. About this time my mother hired a small house in Curzon Street, and I began to go out into society in good earnest, which I enjoyed very much, especially the Court balls, which lasted longer, and were, if I may be allowed to say so, in many respects less formal than those of a later period. I was an inveterate dancer, and the interval which elapsed between my stepping out of the carriage, getting off my cloak, and reaching the ball-room, appeared to me interminable.