Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/60

 were passed in reading them. They served to beguile the melancholy hours of her sickness, and recalled the agreeable recollections of her more splendid, if not more happy, hours. She would say on such occasions, "Doctor, read a little of your book to me." This was always her expression, when I had brought any publication to her: and, ordering a pipe, lying at her length in bed, and smoking whilst I read, she would make her comments as I went on.

"Let me hear about the duchesses," she would say. After a page or two she interrupted me. "See what the Duchess of Rutland and the Duchess of Gordon were: look at the difference. I acknowledge it proceeds all from temperament, just as your dull disposition does, which to me is as bad as a heavy weight or a nightmare. I never knew, among the whole of my acquaintance in England, any one like you but Mr. Polhill of Crofton" (or some such place): "he was always mopish, just as you are. I remember too what a heavy, dull business the Duchess of R.'s parties were—the room so stuffed with people that one could not move, and all so heavy—a great deal of high breeding and bon ton; but there was, somehow, nothing to enliven you. Now and then some incident would turn up to break the spell. One evening, I recollect very well, everybody was suffering with the heat: there we were, with nothing but heads to be