"I wonder," said Miss Eliza Higgins, as she assisted at my toilette, "I wonder if the Earl of Fife will be at Vauxhall? What a bore this little green satin gipsy-hat is, and what a magnificent plume of feathers! How divinely they fall over your shoulders! What a heavenly taste Madame le Brun has!" Miss Eliza Higgins, as it will be perceived, doted on superlatives. Lord Frederick Bentinck came for me before I was half ready. "It's quite a bore! you always keep me waiting," said his lordship, when I came downstairs. "I cannot amuse myself in the least in this room, for I dare not open any one of your books, being always afraid of hitting upon something indecent or immoral." "Come," said I, "we shall be late, if you stand prosing there." "I am thinking," said Frederick Bentinck, without stirring. "You can think," I interrupted him, "as we go along." I took hold of his hand, and pulled him towards the door. "Stop a minute," continued his lordship, "and attend to what I say. I risk a great deal, in going out with a woman like you." "What do you mean by a woman like me?" "Why--a woman--a woman--in short, and to speak plainly, of your loose morals!" "You blockhead!" said I, running downstairs, and having determined in my own mind to be even with him. The gardens were crowded to excess. The late Marquess of Londonderry flattered my vanity, and made me prouder than ever my conquest of Lord Worcester could do, by merely looking at me. He certainly looked a great deal more than perhaps his lady might have thought civil. He struck me, particularly on that evening, as one of the most interesting looking men I had ever seen. At first Lord Frederick seemed rather timid, in regard to my loose morals and my striking elegant dress; but, observing that I excited some little admiration and that his sister, as he told me, looked at me as if she had been much surprised and pleased with me, he now grew proud of having me on his arm and pressed forward into the crowd; but I constantly tugged at his arm till I got into the most retired walks. "What are you afraid of?" said Lord Frederick. "Why, not of your loose morals: but the fact is, I, who am accustomed to go about with the chosen Apollos of the age, shall get terribly laughed at for being at Vauxhall with such a quiz as you. Not that I doubt your being a very excellent sort of man." Fred Bentinck laughed with perfect good-humour. He had no vanity, and was so fond of me that I was welcome to laugh at him, and, provided he saw me amused, he was happy. "I could listen while Harriette talked, though it were for a year together," said Lord Frederick one day to Julia, when I was not present. Indeed he made it a point never to say anything civil to me; but all his actions proved his friendship and regard for me. At four o'clock in the morning I found Miss Eliza Higgins busy about the new cap which was to kill the Thane.