"Suppose we make a party, and hire a house for you and Julia and me?" "The very thing I wish," said Fanny; "for London is growing very stupid. We meet no one but the Hon. Colonel Collyer and Lord Petersham about the streets." "Oh, yes," said I, "we also see Lady Heathcote and Lady Ann Wyndham." "And that makes it worse still," added Fanny, "for I really believe neither of those good ladies has missed Hyde Park or the Opera, one single night for the last twenty years, or changed the colour of their chariot blinds; Heathcote, rosy red! and the gentle Ann's interesting yellow! How very tired I am of seeing these women!" Julia called on me before Fanny had left, and our little excursion to Brighton was fixed for the following week. When we had settled this important affair, my servant informed me that a lady requested to offer herself in the place of Miss Hawkes, my late _dame de compagnie_, who had just left me to be married to her cousin. I desired him to show her upstairs. She came tripping into the room with the step of a child. She wore short petticoats, and a small French bonnet stuck at the top of her head. I should imagine her age to have been about forty: indeed she owned to six-and-twenty. "Who will recommend you, pray, madam?" "The Countess Palmella, wife of the Portuguese Ambassador, in South Audley Street; I have been educating her children." I asked if the countess's had been her first situation. She replied in the affirmative. "What were you doing before that, pray, ma'am?" "Why," said the lady, with much affectation, "you see I was daily, nay hourly, expecting to get settled in life. I had a small property and I went to Bath. Several of my friends had found charming husbands at Bath. However, time slipped away madam, and by some strange fatality or other I exhausted my little resources, and did not manage to get settled in life: that is the truth of it." It stuck me that this curious woman with the odd bonnet, would amuse me as well as any other lion, _pour le moment_, and being acquainted with Amy's poor beau the Count Palmella, I told her she might come to me the following day. She seemed absolutely enraptured, as though mine had been an atmosphere which would rain men upon her, and our bargain was concluded. She was a straight, tall, long-backed lath of a woman, with a remarkably long face, small twinkling eyes, fine hair, and a bad skin, in spite of the white paint she used to beautify it. So much for Miss Eliza Higgins. The next evening found us all quite _rayonnante_, waiting for our dinner in Mr. Dick's elegant drawing-room. "We will certainly not wait for Mr. Ward," said Dick, looking at his watch. "To be sure not, who the devil waits for men?" exclaimed Lord Alvanly. There was a thundering rap at the door, and then entered the Honourable Mr. Ward, looking for all the world like a tobacconist. He was followed by his servant to the very door of the drawing-room. He hoped he had kept nobody waiting.