, and think him, even old as he is, a dangerous
acquaintance for Caroline. Of course you perceive it was Sheridan."
Considering that she suspected him of having written and sent grossly
indecent letters to that girl of hers, one would have said that he was
even more than a dangerous acquaintance. Light-mindedness here spills
over into something rather worse. However, there he was, established,
and it was no way to dispossess him to laugh at his jokes.

I must now invite the reader to a farce, and, if he can forget that
Sheridan was a grandfather and fifty-six, a very good farce it is. It
is 1807, the 28th July. Lady Bessborough is staying with her daughter
for her first confinement, and receives a message from Mrs. Sheridan,
a rather wild young woman in her way, known to all Devonshire House as
Hecca. She goes at midnight,

"... and was carried up to her bedroom, where we had not sat
long when a violent burst at the door announc'd the arrival
of Sheridan, not perfectly sober. The most ridiculous scene
ensued--that is, ridiculous it would have been if I had not
felt myself too indignant and disgusted to be entertain'd. He
began by asking my pardon, entreating my mercy and compassion,
saying that he was a wretch, and was even at that moment more
in love with _me_ than with any woman he had ever met with, on
which Hecca exclaimed: 'Not excepting me? Why, you always tell
me that I am the only woman you were ever in love with.'
'So you are, to be sure, my dear Hecca; you know _that_, of
course--you _know_ that I love you better than anything
on earth.' '_Except_ her!' 'Pish, pish, child! Do not talk
nonsense.' Then he began again at me, upbraiding me for my
cruelty, both for quarrelling with him and setting Hecca
against him. The first, I said, I did in my own defence, the
other was false, Hecca every now and then coming in with:
'Why, S----, I thought Lady B---- pursued you, and that you
reviled all her violence like a second Joseph? So you us'd
to tell me.' I cannot give you all the conversation, for it
lasted till near three in the morning.... Getting away was the
difficulty; he wanted to come down with me, and seiz'd my arm
with such violence once before Hecca, that I was obliged to
call her maid to help me, and at last only escaped by locking
him in."

This sort of thing happened once more, in the same year, at Brocke