"He is a pretty fellow, my dear," she said, "though of position too exalted for one so humble as myself. He had exhausted all his compliments upon the Queen and had none for a simple maid of honour, which I told him at parting, and it made him blush like a girl. How I love to see a man blush; it is a sign that there is yet left some remains of grace. Perhaps Lord Chudleigh is not so hardened as his fellows. Look at Peggy's languid airs: she thinks a minuet should be danced as if you were going to die the very next minute; and she rolls her eyes about as if she were fainting for a man to kiss her. My dear, Lord Chudleigh, I fear, is above us both; yet he is but a man, and all men are made of tinder, and a woman is the spark. I think he may be on fire before long, think not upon him until you find out how his affections are disposed, and whether he is free. A roving lord, at the watering-places, who is young and handsome, is as dangerous to us poor damsels, and plays as much havoc among our hearts, as Samson when he had got that jawbone, among the Philistines. A truly dreadful thing it would be"--it was wonderful that she should be saying all this in ignorance, how every word went home--"to set your affections upon a lord, and to find out afterwards that he was pledged to somebody else. Hateful thing she would be!" While the minuets were dancing we stood and watched the gay throng. Never had I dreamed of anything so gay and animated. There were three hundred people, at least as many men as women, and all dressed in their very best. As for the ladies, it was the fashion when I was a girl for all to be powdered, but there were many modes of dressing the head. For some wore aigrettes of jewels (who could afford them) some false flowers, and some true flowers, which were pretty and becoming for a young girl: and some had coiffures _à la culbutte_, some _en dorlotte_, some _en papillon_, or _en vergette_, _en équivoque_, _en désespoir_, or _en tête de mouton_. The last was the commonest, in which there were curls all over the back of the head. And there were French curls, which looked something like eggs strung on a wire round the head, and Italian curls or scallop-shells. The petticoats were ornamented with falbalas and _pretantailles_; most ladies wore _criardes_, and all had hoops, but some wore hoops _en coupole_ and some small hoops, and some looked like a state-bed on castors, and as if they had robbed the valance for the skirt and the tester for the trimmings. But there is no end to the changes of fashion. As for the gentlemen, their vanities were mostly in the wig, for though the full wig was now gone out of fashion, having given place to the neat and elegant tie-wig with a broad black ribbon and a little bag, or a queue, yet there was not wanting the full-bottomed periwig, the large flowing grizzle, and the great wig with three tails. And every kind of face, the vacant, the foolish, the