ciated memory to
observe that the Duke of Gloucester scored a point against his kingly
cousin when, on hearing that William IV. had consented to the Reform
Bill, he ejaculated, "Who's Silly Billy now?" But this is a digression.

Early in the nineteenth century a famous lady, whose name, for obvious
reasons, I forbear to indicate even by an initial, had inherited great
wealth under a will which, to put it mildly, occasioned much surprise.
She shared an opera-box with a certain Lady D---, who loved the flowing
wine-cup not wisely, but too well. One night Lady D--- was visibly
intoxicated at the opera, and her friend told her that the partnership
in the box must cease, as she could not appear again in company so
disgraceful. "As you please," said Lady D---. "I may have had a glass of
wine too much; but at any rate I never forged my father's signature, and
then murdered the butler to prevent his telling."

Beau Brummell, the Prince of Dandies and the most insolent of men, was
once asked by a lady if be would "take a cup of tea." "Thank you,
ma'am," he replied, "I never _take_ anything but physic." "I beg your
pardon," replied the hostess, "you also take liberties."

The Duchess of Somerset, born Sheridan, and famous as the Queen of
Beauty at the Eglinton Tournament of 1839, was pre-eminent in this
agreeable art of swift response. One day she called at a shop for some
article which she had purchased the day before, and which had not been
sent home. The order could not be traced. The proprietor of the
establishment inquired, with great concern, "May I ask who took your
Grace's order? Was it a young gentleman with fair hair?" "No; it was an
elderly nobleman with a bald head."

The celebrated Lady Clanricarde, daughter of George Canning, was talking
during the Franco-German War of 1870 to the French Ambassador, who
complained bitterly that England had not intervened on behalf of France.
"But, after all," he said, "it was only what we might have expected. We
always believed that you were a nation of shopkeepers, and now we know
you are." "And we," replied Lady Clanricarde, "always believed that you
were a nation of soldiers, and now we know you are not"--a repartee
worthy to rank with Queen Mary's reply to Lady Lochleven about the
sacramental character of marriage, in the third volume of _The Abbot_.

A young lady, who had just been appointed a Maid of Honour, was telling
some friends with whom she was dining that one of the