served in the great wars of
Marlborough. Mr. Webb met us at our uncle's, accosting us very politely,
and giving us an invitation to visit him at his regiment. Let my poor
brother go and listen to his darling music of fife and drum! He bade me
tell the ladies that they should hear from him. I kiss their hands, and
go to dress for dinner, at the Star and Garter, in Pall Mall. We are to
have Mr. Soame Jenyns, Mr. Cambridge, Mr. Walpole, possibly, if he is
not too fine to dine in a tavern; a young Irishman, a Mr. Bourke, who
they say is a wonder of eloquence and learning--in fine, all the wits of
Mr. Dodsley's shop. Quick, Gumbo, a coach, and my French grey suit! And
if gentlemen ask me, 'Who gave you that sprig of lilac you wear on your
heart-side?' I shall call a bumper, and give Lilac for a toast.'"

I fear there is no more rest for Hetty on this night than on the
previous one, when she had behaved so mutinously to poor Harry
Warrington. Some secret resolution must have inspired that gentleman,
for, after leaving Mr. Lambert's table, he paced the streets for
a while, and appeared at a late hour in the evening at Madame de
Bernstein's house in Clarges Street. Her ladyship's health had been
somewhat ailing of late, so that even her favourite routs were denied
her, and she was sitting over a quiet game of ecarte, with a divine of
whom our last news were from a lock-up house hard by that in which Harry
Warrington had been himself confined. George, at Harry's request, had
paid the little debt under which Mr. Sampson had suffered temporarily.
He had been at his living for a year. He may have paid and contracted
ever so many debts, have been in and out of jail many times since we saw
him. For some time past he had been back in London stout and hearty
as usual, and ready for any invitation to cards or claret. Madame de
Bernstein did not care to have her game interrupted by her nephew, whose
conversation had little interest now for the fickle old woman. Next to
the very young, I suppose the very old are the most selfish. Alas, the
heart hardens as the blood ceases to run. The cold snow strikes down
from the head, and checks the glow of feeling. Who wants to survive
into old age after abdicating all his faculties one by one, and be sans
teeth, sans eyes, sans memory, sans hope, sans sympathy? How fared it
with those patriarchs of old who lived for their nine centuries, and
when were life's conditions so changed that, after threesco