Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/222

 they came into Lord Stafford's. I had dined there, en famille, and there was a party in the evening. I was in the second room, and the Prince was standing by the fire, showing his behind, as usual, to everybody, and there was Lord M., always looking about after somebody whom he did not find perhaps for three or four hours. They say he is filled out: he was slim when I knew him. Doctor, he is a very handsome man; but he must be sixty, or more."

Ever and anon, Lady Hester Stanhope would revert to Colonel Campbell's letter. "Yes," she said; "if he feels regret at being obliged to write it, I will say to him, 'No doubt, he feels pain at having to do with one of the most blackguard transactions I ever knew;' but I dare say he feels nothing of the sort." Then, after a pause, he added, "I think I shall take the bull by the horns, and send a letter to the Queen. If getting into debt is such a crime, I should like to know how the Duchess of K got into debt.

"Doctor, would you believe it? a welly" (in Arabic, a sort of soothsayer) "foretold what has happened to me now so exactly, that I must relate the story to you. He was sitting in a coffee-house one day, with one of my people, and had taken from the waiter a cup of coffee; but, in carrying it to his mouth, to drink it, his hand stopped midway, and his eyes were fixed for some time on the surface of the liquor in