in her sixty-second year. It
is possible, but extremely improbable, therefore, that Lady Mary should
have taken a young man into keeping. Horace Walpole may always be
trusted to make the best of a rumour. Still, it may be stated, on the
authority of Wright, that among Lady Mary's papers there was found a
long account of the matter, written in Italian. In this she mentioned
that for some time she had been forcibly detained in a country house
belonging to an Italian Count and occupied by him and his mother. This
paper, it is further mentioned, seems to have been submitted to a lawyer
for his opinion or for production in a court of law. It may be, of
course, that Lady Mary did, to some extent, adopt the young man, who
thought that by keeping possession of her person he might be able to
extort money from her.

Not long after this business, in fact, in February, 1752, Lady Mary was
reporting that she was well enough in health. She had been reading
Coventry's _Pompey the Little_, and tells her daughter that she saw
herself in the character of Mrs. Qualmsick:

"You will be surprised at this, no Englishwoman being so free from
vapours, having never in my life complained of low spirits or weak
nerves; but our resemblance is very strong in the fancied loss of
appetite, which I have been silly enough to be persuaded into by the
physician of this place. He visits me frequently, as being one of the
most considerable men in the parish, and is a grave, sober thinking
great fool, whose solemn appearance, and deliberate way of delivering
his sentiments gives them an air of good sense, though they are often
the most injudicious that ever were pronounced. By perpetual telling me
I eat so little, he is amazed I am able to subsist, he had brought me to
be of his opinion; and I began to be seriously uneasy at it. This useful
treatise has roused me into a recollection of what I eat yesterday, and
do almost every day the same. I wake generally about seven, and drink
half a pint of warm asses' milk, after which I sleep two hours; as soon
as I am risen, I constantly take three cups of milk coffee, and
hours after that a large cup of milk chocolate: two hours more brings my
dinner, where I never fail swallowing a good dish (I don't mean plate)
of gravy soup, with all the bread, roots, &c., belonging to it. I then
eat a wing and the whole body of a large fat capon, and a veal
sweetbread, concluding with a competent quantity of custard, and some