Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/44

 dry, and with nothing pleasing about him. His wife was a charming woman, brought up by some great person, and with very good manners.

"As for tutors, and doctors, and such people, if, now-a-days, mylords and myladies walk arm-in-arm with them, they did not do so in my time. I recollect an old dowager, to whom I used sometimes to be taken to spend the morning. She was left with a large jointure, and a fine house for the time being, and used to invite the boys and the girls of my age, I mean the age I was then, with their tutors and governesses, to come and see her. 'How do you do, Dr. Mackenzie? Lord John, I see, is all the better for his medicine: the duchess is happy in having found a man of such excellent talents, which are almost too great to be confined to the sphere of one family.'—'Such is the nature of our compact, my Lady, nor could I on any account violate the regulations which so good a family has imposed upon me.'—'It's very cold, Dr. Mackenzie: I think I increased my rheumatic pains at the Opera on Saturday night.'—'Did you ever try Dover's Powders, my lady?' He does not, you see, tell her to use Dover's Powders; he only says, did you ever try them? 'Lord John—Lord John, you must take care, and not eat too much of that strawberry preserve.'