Not to digress too long, being all four hissed out of Portsmouth with much _éclat_, we returned to our humble village looking rather wise at each other, and, for the next two months or thereabouts that we remained in that part of the world, we confined ourselves to quarters _parce que les plaisirs du village valaient, pour le moins, ceux, dont on nous régalaient à la ville._ His Grace of Beaufort at last obtained leave for Worcester to join him at Badminton, and being, as he said, rendered perfectly miserable every hour that his son continued within the magic circle of my spells, he wrote to insist on Worcester joining him in a few days. Worcester, when he read these commands from his father, looked as if he had received his death-warrant. He was indeed completely wretched. For my part, I also felt very melancholy and dull, under the idea that, somehow or other, His Grace was determined to separate us. I had become habituated to Worcester's society and Worcester's attentions, and was beginning to feel a very lively friendship for him. Such friendships are often more lasting and better than love; and then I knew well that I should not again meet with half such kindness and devotion from any other man, for I never in my life yet heard of one, young or old, who was so eternally _aux petits soins_, and paid a woman the unremitting attention which I received from Worcester up to the last hour of our continuing together. I cannot however say that I was sorry to exchange this miserable, muddy village for my comfortable house in town. Not but Lord Arthur Hill had something comical about his manner, which I thought amusing enough; yet there was no real fun nor humour in the Duc de Guiche, although he often laughed in much the same stiff and unnatural style as his shirt collars. He was not remarkably popular either with soldiers or officers, although he is undoubtedly a very handsome gentlemanlike Frenchman, and, as I have always heard, and been inclined to believe, a very brave one too. He was rather severe with the men and, I fancy, ill-tempered, and he was a decided fop, as I think I have before mentioned. I remember the Duc de Guiche one day desiring Lord Charles Somerset's eldest son, who was a cornet in the Tenth at Brighton, to change the saddle on which he was riding, and which happened to be one of his father's constructing while his lordship commanded the district, and to substitute the regular regimental saddle. The lad refused, declaring that he had been commanded by Lord Charles to use his own. De Guiche was Captain of the troop to which young Somerset belonged, and it was the duke's turn to attend in the riding-school. The duke, much incensed, would have put Somerset under arrest if he had not immediately changed the saddle. The lad was very sulky, and complained in the evening to his papa.