Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/62

 very severe on the Duchess of D. and her friends, whenever her name or theirs was mentioned. She said she was full of affected sensibility, but that there was always a great deal of wickedness about her eyes.

The mention of the Duchess of Rutland's name also led to an amusing anecdote. Lady Hester was speaking of the grand fête given by the duchess when her son came of age. The arrangements were entrusted to a person named Rice, and to some great confectioner. Mr. Rice had been maître d'hôtel, or in some such capacity, in Mr. Pitt's family.

"Rice told me," said Lady Hester, "that when he and the other man were preparing for the fête, he never lay down for ten nights, but got what sleep he could in an arm-chair. The duchess gave him three hundred guineas. One day she looked at him over her shoulder; and when one of the beaux about her said, 'What are you looking after, duchess? You have forgotten something in the drawing-room?'—'No, no,' said she, pointing to Rice, 'I was only thinking that those eyes are too good for a kitchen.' And then one talked of the eyes, and the eyes, and another of the eyes and the eyes, until poor Rice quite blushed. He had very pretty eyes, doctor."

But the anecdote I was going to relate was this. Most simple persons, like myself, imagine that prime