, and
we pay it; our John finishes reading the newspaper before he answers
our bell, and brings it to us; our sons loll in the arm-chair which
we should like; fill the house with their young men, and smoke in the
dining-room; our tailors fit us badly; our butchers give us the youngest
mutton; our tradesmen dun us much more quickly than other people's,
because they know we are good-natured; and our servants go out whenever
they like, and openly have their friends to supper in the kitchen. When
Lady Kew said Sic volo, sic jubeo, I promise you few persons of her
ladyship's belongings stopped, before they did her biddings, to ask her
reasons.

If, which very seldom happens, there are two such imperious and
domineering spirits in a family, unpleasantries of course will arise
from their contentions; or, if out of doors the family Bajazet meets
with some other violent Turk, dreadful battles ensue, all the allies
on either side are brought in, and the surrounding neighbours perforce
engaged in the quarrel. This was unluckily the case in the present
instance. Lady Kew, unaccustomed to have her will questioned at home,
liked to impose it abroad. She judged the persons around her with great
freedom of speech. Her opinions were quoted, as people's sayings will
be; and if she made bitter speeches, depend on it they lost nothing in
the carrying. She was furious against Madame la Duchesse d'Ivry, and
exploded in various companies whenever that lady's name was mentioned.
"Why was she not with her husband? Why was the poor old Duke left to
his gout, and this woman trailing through the country with her vagabond
court of billiard-markers at her heels? She to call herself Mary Queen
of Scots, forsooth!--well, she merited the title in some respects,
though she had not murdered her husband as yet. Ah! I should like to be
Queen Elizabeth if the Duchess is Queen of Scots!" said the old lady,
shaking her old fist. And these sentiments being uttered in public, upon
the promenade, to mutual friends, of course the Duchess had the benefit
of Lady Kew's remarks a few minutes after they were uttered; and her
grace, and the distinguished princes, counts, and noblemen in her
court, designated as billiard-markers by the old Countess, returned the
latter's compliments with pretty speeches of their own. Scandals were
dug up respecting her ladyship, so old that one would have thought them
forgotten these forty years,--so old that they happened before most