rand company--and so
many more opportunities of improving myself. Oh, how I liked to see the
grand coaches drive up to the door, with the grand company; and though,
amidst that company, there were some who did not look very grand, there
were others, and not a few, who did. Some of the ladies quite captivated
me; there was the Marchioness of --- in particular. This young lady puts
me much in mind of her; it is true, the Marchioness, as I saw her then,
was about fifteen years older than this young gentlewoman is now, and not
so tall by some inches, but she had the very same hair, and much the same
neck and shoulders--no offence, I hope? And then some of the young
gentlemen, with their cool, haughty, care-for-nothing looks, struck me as
being very fine fellows. There was one in particular, whom I frequently
used to stare at, not altogether unlike some one I have seen
hereabouts--he had a slight cast in his eye, and but I won't enter into
every particular. And then the footmen! Oh, how those footmen helped to
improve me with their conversation. Many of them could converse much
more glibly than their masters, and appeared to have much better taste.
At any rate, they seldom approved of what their masters did. I remember
being once with one in the gallery of the play-house, when something of
Shakspeare's was being performed; some one in the first tier of boxes was
applauding very loudly. 'That's my fool of a governor,' said he; 'he is
weak enough to like Shakspeare--I don't--he's so confoundedly low, but he
won't last long--going down. Shakspeare culminated'--I think that was
the word--'culminated some time ago.'

"And then the professor of elocution, of whom my governors used to take
lessons, and of which lessons I had my share, by listening behind the
door; but for that professor of elocution I should not be able to round
my periods--an expression of his--in the manner I do.

"After I had been three years at this place my mistress died. Her death,
however, made no great alteration in my way of living, the family
spending their winters in London, and their summers at their old seat in
S--- as before. At last, the young ladies, who had not yet got husbands,
which was strange enough, seeing, as I told you before, they were very
amiable, proposed to our governor a travelling expedition abroad. The
old baronet consented, though young master was much against it, saying,
they would all be much better at home. As the