Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/21

 a favourite with my father. She exemplified this by an anecdote of the second Lady Stanhope, her step-mother, referring to the time when her father, in one of his republican fits, put down his carriages and horses.

"Poor Lady Stanhope," she said, "was quite unhappy about it; but, when the whole family was looking glum and sulky, I thought of a way to set all right again. I got myself a pair of stilts, and out I stumped down a dirty lane, where my father, who was always spying about through his glass, could see me. So, when I came home, he said to me, 'Why, little girl, what have you been about? Where was it I saw you going upon a pair of—the devil knows what?—eh, girl?'—'Oh! papa, I thought, as you had laid down your horses, I would take a walk through the mud on stilts; for you know, papa, I don’t mind mud or anything—’tis poor Lady Stanhope who feels these things; for she has always been accustomed to her carriage, and her health is not very good.'—'What's that you say, little girl?' said my father, turning his eyes away from me; and, after a pause, 'Well, little girl, what would you say if I bought a carriage again for Lady Stanhope?'—'Why, papa, I would say it was very kind of you.'—'Well, well,' he observed, 'we will see; but, damn it! no armorial bearings.' So, some time afterwards, down came a new carriage and new