Worcester sent me about six sheets of foolscap, scribbled all over in every corner, once a day, and on Sunday he rode nine miles to overtake the coach with a volume! He had, he said, been accused by the duke his father of wishing to make me his wife, and he had found it impossible to deny that such was, in fact, his first hope. His father used very harsh words, and Worcester's courage and firmness had consequently increased. Suddenly, the duke had changed this high tone, and taking his son by the hand addressed him with much apparent feeling. This, as I afterwards learned from His Grace's brother, was a mere cold-blooded plan, settled between these two hopeful gentlemen, who had agreed that their best chance was to touch up the young marquis with a little bit of sentiment. Nay, in their zeal, they agreed to carry the farce to such lengths as even to speak of me, their night-mare, the person on earth which they most abhorred, and whose influence they most dreaded, with an appearance of feeling and respect, praying inwardly that either an earthquake might swallow me up, or that I might be seized with sudden death. "My dear, dear boy," said Beaufort, "you must forgive me if the extreme anxiety you have for such a long time occasioned myself and your poor mother, has, for a season, made me lose my temper. I see that your feeling for Harriette is real, and beyond your power to overcome at present. Indeed, if she is good to you, I desire that every care and attention should be paid her, and you should return to her, and be teased no more on the subject: only pass your word and honour to me, as a son, and as a gentleman, that you will never marry her, and you shall hear no more from either of us on the subject." Worcester, in his letter to me, where he described this scene, professed to have been deeply affected by it, and to have passed the following night and day in tears, yet he firmly refused to comply with his father's request. _Et tout fut consternation dans le plus beau et le plus agréable château, qu'on puisse imaginer!_ All those letters from Lord Worcester having been since returned to the Duke of Beaufort, that honourable nobleman with his son may be pleased to deny that such letters were written. However, after referring my readers to the celebrated Henry Brougham, M.P., of Lincoln's Inn, and another highly respectable counsellor of the same place, named Treslove, who have both read the whole of Lord Worcester's correspondence (why they did so shall be told hereafter), I will leave them to form their own conclusion as to the truth or falsehood of what I have written, or shall write, on the subject of those worthy wiseacres, the Beauforts! Worcester concluded this letter by declaring he could not and would not remain any longer absent from me, and that I was all the consolation which was left him on earth, since his father was about to turn his back on him for ever. I answered this letter immediately, to this effect.