--------------------------------

Glorious news! The Prince is at Derby. I am sure there is no more need
to fear for Angus. His Royal Highness will be here in a very few days
now: and then let the Whigs look to themselves!

Grandmamma has bought some more white cockades. She says Hatty has
improved wonderfully; her cheeks are not so shockingly red, and she
speaks better, and has more decent manners. She thinks the Crosslands
have done her a great deal of good. I thought Hatty looking not at all
well the last time she was here; and so grave for her--almost sad. And
I am afraid the Crosslands, or somebody, have done her a great deal of
bad. But somehow, Hatty is one of those people whom you cannot question
unless she likes. Something inside me will not put the questions. I
don't know what it is.

I wish I knew everything! If I could only understand myself, I should
get on better. And how am I going to understand other people?

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Note 1. A clergyman always wore his cassock at this time. Whitefield
was very severe on those worldly clergy who laid it aside, and went
"disguised"--namely, in the ordinary coat--to entertainments of various
kinds.

CHAPTER TEN.

SPIDERS' WEBS.

"Why does he find so many tangled threads,
So many dislocated purposes,
So many failures in the race of life?"

REV HORATIUS BONAR, D.D.

We had a grand time of it last night, to celebrate the Prince's entry
into Derby. I did not see one red ribbon. Grandmamma is very much put
out at the forbidding of French cambrics; she says nobody will be able
to have a decent ruffle or a respectable handkerchief now: but what can
you expect of these Hanoverians? And I am sure she looked smart enough
last night. We had dancing--first, the minuet, and then a
round--"Pepper's black," and then "Dull Sir John," and a country dance,
"Smiling Polly." Flora would not dance, and Grandmamma excused her,
because she was a minister's daughter: Grandmamma always says a
clergyman when she tells people: she says minister is a low word only
used by Dissenters, and she does not want people to know that any guest
of hers has any connection with those creatures. "However, thank
Heaven! (says she) the girl is not my grand-daughter!" I don't know
what she would say if I were to turn Dissenter. I suppose she would cut
me off with a shilling. Ephraim said so, and I asked