uctress to her
niece."

"I heard something of that sort, a kind of friendly arrangement, at
which Madame Bathurst had good cause to be content. I'm sure I should
have been, had I been so fortunate; and now you are residing with Lady
R--, may I inquire, without presuming too much, in what capacity you are
with Lady R--."

"I went there as an amanuensis, but I have never written a line. Lady
R--is pleased to consider me as a companion, and I must say that she has
behaved to me with great kindness and consideration."

"I have no doubt of it," replied Lady M--; "but still it appears to me
(excuse the liberty I take, or ascribe it to a feeling of good-will),
that your position with Lady R--is not quite what those who have an
interest in you would wish. Everyone knows how odd she is, to say the
least of it, and you may not be perhaps aware, that occasionally her
tongue outruns her discretion. In your presence she of course is on her
guard, for she is really good-natured, and would not willingly offend
anyone or hurt their feelings, but when led away by her desire to shine
in company, she is very indiscreet. I have been told that at Mrs W--'s
dinner-party the other day, to which you were not invited, on your name
being brought up, she called you her charming model, I think was the
phrase; and on an explanation being demanded of the term, she said you
stood for her heroines, putting yourself in postures and positions while
she drew from nature, as she termed it; and that, moreover, on being
complimented on the idea, and some of the young men offering, or rather
intimating, that they would be delighted to stand or kneel at your feet,
as the hero of the tale, she replied that she had no occasion for their
services, as she had a page or footman, I forget which, who did that
portion of the work. Surely this cannot be true, my dear Mademoiselle
de Chatenoeuf?"

Oh! how my blood boiled when I heard this.

How far it was true, the reader already knows; but the manner in which
it was conveyed by Lady M--, quite horrified me. I coloured up to the
temples, and replied, "Lady M--, that Lady R--has very often, when I
have been sitting, and she has been writing, told me that she was taking
me as a model for her heroine, is very true, but I have considered it as
a mere whim of hers, knowing how very eccentric she is. I little
thought from my having good-naturedly yielded to her caprice, that I
should have been so mortified as I