y
Belfield, do lend me twenty guineas, I have not a shilling about me."
"Then, my dear Lady Melbury," said Lady Belfield, "how _could_ you order
twelve dozen expensive flowers?" "Oh," said she, "I did not mean to have
paid for them till next year." "And how," replied Lady Belfield, "could
the debt which was not to have been paid for a twelvemonth have relieved
the pressing wants of a creature who must pay ready money for her
materials? However, as you are so distressed we will contrive to do
without your money." "I would pawn my diamond necklace directly,"
returned she, but speaking lower, "to own the truth, it is already in
the jeweler's hands, and I wear a paste necklace of the same form."

Sir John knowing I had been at my banker's that morning, gave me such a
significant look as restrained my hand, which was already on my
pocket-book. In great seeming anguish, she gave Sir John her hand, who
conducted her to her coach. As he was leading her down stairs, she
solemnly declared she would never again run in debt, never order more
things than she wanted, and above all, would never play while she lived.
She was miserable, because she durst not ask Lord Melbury to pay this
woman, he having already given her money three times for the purpose,
which she had lost at Faro. Then retracting, she protested, if ever she
_did_ touch a card again, it should be for the sole purpose of getting
something to discharge this debt. Sir John earnestly conjured her not to
lay "that flattering unction to her soul," but to convert the present
vexation into an occasion of felicity, by making it the memorable and
happy era of abandoning a practice which injured her fortune, her fame,
her principles, and her peace. "Poor thing," said Sir John, when he
repeated this to us,

"Ease will recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void."

"In an interval of weeping, she told me," added he, "that she was to be
at the opera to-night. To the opera Faro will succeed, and to-morrow
probably the diamond earrings will go to Grey's in pursuit of the
necklace."

Lady Belfield inquired of Fanny how it happened that Lady Melbury, who
talked with _her_, without surprise or emotion, discovered so much of
both at the bare sight of her mother. The girl explained this by saying,
that she had never been in the way while they lived in Bond-street when
her ladyship used to come, having been always employed in an upper room,
or attending her mast