Now what manner of thing a _pouf!_ might be, I had not the slightest conception. “It requireth,” said Bacon, “great cunning for a man in discourse to seem to know that which he knoweth not.” Warned by _boue de Paris_ and the _suppressed sigh_, this time I found safety in silence. I listened, and learned, first that _un pouf_ was the most charming thing in the creation; next, that nobody upon earth could be seen in Paris without one; that one was coming from Mademoiselle Berlin, per favour of Miss Wilkes, for Lady Anne Mowbray, and that it would be on her head on Wednesday; and Colonel Topham swore there would be no resisting her ladyship in the _pouf_, she would look so killing. “So killing,” was the colonel’s last. I now thought that I had Lady Anne’s ear to myself; but she ran on to something else, and I was forced to follow as she skimmed over fields of nonsense. At last she did stop to take breath, and I did get in my one question: to which her ladyship replied, “Poor Fowler frighten me? Lord! No. Like her? oh! yes--dote upon Fowler! didn’t you?--No, you hated her, I remember. Well, but I assure you she’s the best creature in the world; I could always make her do just what I pleased. Positively, I must make you make it up with her, if I can remember it, when she comes up to town--she is to come up for my birthday. Mamma, you know, generally leaves her at the Priory, to take care of all the old trumpery, and show the place--you know it’s a _show place_. But I tell Colonel Topham, when I’ve a place of my own, I positively will have it modern, and all the furniture in the very newest style. I’m so sick of old reliques! Natural, you know, when _I have been having_ a surfeit all my life of old beds and chairs, and John of Gaunt and the Black Prince. But the Black Prince, I remember, was always a vast favourite of yours. Well, but poor Fowler, you must like her, too--I assure you she always speaks with tenderness of you; she is really the best old soul! for she’s growing oldish, but so faithful, and so sincere too. Only flatters mamma sometimes so, I can hardly help laughing in her face; but then you know mamma, and old ladies, when they come to that pass, must be flattered to keep them up--‘tis but charitable--really right. Poor Fowler’s daughter is to be my maid.” “I did not know Fowler had a daughter, and a daughter grown up.”