tess of Winchelsea, and other women of
rank being then at the castle, Mademoiselle d'Este's pretensions
stood not the slightest chance of acknowledgment, and she took this
quite ineffectual way of protesting against her social position.

Everybody at Belvoir was sufficiently familiar with her to accept
these sort of proceedings on her part. To me they seemed more
undignified and wanting in real pride and self-respect than a quiet
acquiescence in the inevitable would have been. The conventional
distinction she demanded had been legally refused her, and it was
not in the power of the society to which she belonged to give it to
her, however much they might have felt inclined to pity her position
and excuse her resentment of it. But it was inconceivable to me that
she should not either withdraw absolutely from all society (which is
what I should have done in her place), or submit silently to an
injury against which all protest was vain, which renewed itself, in
some shape or other, daily, and which really involved no personal
affront to her or injustice to the character of her mother. I
thought she made a great mistake, which did not prevent my being
attracted by her; and while we were at Belvoir, and immediately
afterwards at Lord Willoughby's together, and subsequently on our
return to London, we had a good deal of familiar and friendly
intercourse with each other, in the course of which I had many
opportunities of observing the perpetual struggle she maintained
against what she considered the intolerable hardship of her
position.

She occupied a pretty little house in Mount Street, Grosvenor
Square, and never allowed her servants to wear anything but the
undress of the royal household; the scarlet livery being, of course,
out of the question. On one or two occasions I dined with her
_tete-a-tete_, and took no notice of the fact, which I remembered
afterwards, that she invariably sent the servant out of the room,
and helped herself and me with her own hands; but once, when the
Duchess of B---- dined with us, and Mademoiselle d'Este had a
dumb-waiter placed beside her, and, sending the man-servant out of
the room, performed all the table service (except, indeed, bringing
in the dishes), with our assistance only, the duchess assured me
afterwards that this was simply because, in he