Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/61

 seen like bottles in a basket. I got out of the room, upon the landing-place. There I found Lady Sefton, Lady Heathcote, and some of your high-flyers, and somebody was saying to me, 'Lady Hester something,' when, half way up the staircase, the Duke of Cumberland was trying to make his way. He cried out, 'Where's Lady Hester? where's my aide-de-camp? Come and help me; for I am so blind I can't get on alone. Why, this is h—l and dn!'— 'Here I am, sir.'—'Give me your hand, there's a good little soul. Do help me into this h—l; for it's quite as hot.' Then came Bradford; and, whilst he was speaking to me, and complaining of the intolerable heat and crush, out roared the Duke of Cumberland, 'Where is she gone to?'—and up went his glass, peeping about to the right and left—'where is she gone to?' There was some life in him, doctor.

"Now, at the Duchess of Gordons, there were people of the same fashion, and the crowd was just as great; but then she was so lively, and everybody was so animated, and seemed to know so well what they were about—quite another thing.

"As for the Duchess of D.'s, there they were—all that set—all yawning, and wanting the evening to be spent, that they might be getting to the business they were after."

It may be mentioned that Lady Hester was always