n twenty years than I could have imagined; I told her so, and
she was not so tolerable twenty years ago that she needed to have taken
it for flattery, but she did, and literally gave me a box on the ear.
She is very lively, all her senses perfect, her languages as imperfect
as ever, her avarice greater. She entertained me at first with nothing
but the dearness of provisions at Helvoet. With nothing but an Italian,
a French, and a Prussian, all men-servants, and something she calls an
_old_ secretary, but whose age till he appears will be doubtful;
she receives all the world who go to homage her as Queen-mother, and
crams them into this kennel. The Duchess of Hamilton, who came in just
after me, was so astonished and diverted, that she could not speak to
her for laughing. She says that she left all her clothes at Venice. I
really pity Lady Bute; what will the progress be of such a commencement?"

Lady Mary rented a house in Great George Street, Hanover Square, whither
her daughter and grandchildren came often. Occasionally she went about,
and from time to time would grace an assembly with her presence. Horace
Walpole saw her at some gathering, dressed in yellow velvet and sables,
with a decent laced head and a black hood, almost like a veil, over her
face. His prognostication that she would by her interference and demands
for "jobs" make life hideous for Lord and Lady Bute proved to be
unfounded, and he had the grace to say, "She is much more discreet than
I expected, and meddles with nothing"; but he could not refrain from
saying that "she is woefully tedious in her narrations."

Lady Mary was suffering from cancer, which she concealed from her family
and acquaintances until about the beginning of July (1762). Then it
burst, and there was no hope of her life being much prolonged. On July 2
she wrote her last letter to Lady Frances Steuart, saying, "I have been
ill a long time, and am now so bad I am little capable of writing, but I
would not pass in your opinion as either stupid or ungrateful. My heart
is always warm in your service, and I am always told your affairs shall
be taken care of." If she was a bad woman to cross, at least even on her
deathbed she tried to do service to her friends. Death had no terrors
for her; she said she had lived long enough; and she died, as she had
lived, with great fortitude.

Lady Mary passed away on August 21, 1762, at the age of seventy-three.
Her remains were interred in the grave