Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/39

 but I should really like to know what excuse Lord A. could offer for his primosity to us, when he was riding with such a Jezebel as Lady.'

"Yet it might have been very natural for Mr. Pitt to do so. How many people used to come and ask me impertinent questions, in order to get out his state secrets: but I very soon set them down. 'What, you are come to give me a lesson of impertinence,' I used to say, laughing in their faces. One day, one of them, of rather a first-rate class, began with―'Now, my dear Lady Hester, you know our long friendship, and the esteem I have for you―now do just tell me, who is to go out ambassador to Russia?' So I was resolved to try him; and, with a very serious air, I said, 'Why, if I had to choose, there are only three persons whom I think fit for the