coach by Sir John and the captain, and drove
rapidly off Kensington way, to avoid the people at the corner.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

IN WHICH I AM ROUNDLY BROUGHT TO TASK

I would have gone to Arlington Street direct, but my friends had no
notion of letting me escape. They carried me off to Brooks's Club, where
a bowl of punch was brewed directly, and my health was drunk to three
times three. Mr. Storer commanded a turtle dinner in my honour. We were
not many, fortunately,--only Mr. Fox's little coterie. And it was none
other than Mr. Fox who made the speech of the evening. "May I be strung
as high as Haman," said he, amid a tempest of laughter, "if ever I saw
half so edifying a sight as his Grace pitching into the Serpentine,
unless it were his Grace dragged out again. Mr. Carvel's advent has
been a Godsend to us narrow ignoramuses of this island, gentlemen.
To the Englishmen of our colonies, sirs, and that we may never underrate
or misunderstand them more!"

"Nay, Charles," cried my Lord Comyn. "Where is our gallantry? I give
you first the Englishwomen of our colonies, and in particular the pride
of Maryland, who has brought back to the old country all the graces of
the new,--Miss Manners."

His voice was drowned by a deafening shout, and we charged our glasses to
drain them brimming. And then we all went to Drury Lane to see Mrs.
Clive romp through 'The Wonder' in the spirit of the "immortal Peg." She
spoke an epilogue that Mr. Walpole had writ especial for her, and made
some witty and sarcastic remarks directed at the gentlemen in our
stagebox. We topped off a very full day by a supper at the Bedford Arms,
where I must draw the certain.

The next morning I was abed at an hour which the sobriety of old age
makes me blush abed think of. Banks had just concluded a discreet
discourse upon my accomplishment of the day before, and had left for my
newspapers, when he came running back with the information that Miss
Manners would see my honour that day. There was no note. Between us
we made my toilet in a jiffy, and presently I was walking in at the
Manners's door in an amazing hurry, and scarcely waited for a direction.
But as I ran up the stairs, I heard the tinkle of the spinet, and the
notes of an old, familiar tune fell upon my ears. The words rose in my
head with the cadence.

"Love me little, love me long,
Is the burthen of my song,
Love that is too hot and strong
Runn