to fame.

Lady Mary was an attractive child, and her father was very proud of her,
especially when she was in what may be called the kitten stage. The
story is told that, when she was about eight years old, he named her as
a "toast" at the Kit-Cat Club, and as she was not known to the majority
of the members he sent for her, where, on her arrival, she was received
with acclamation by the Whig wits there assembled.

Sometimes Lady Mary in her girlhood stayed at Thoresby, and occasionally
came up to her father's London house, which was in Arlington Street,
which visits, accepting the story told by her granddaughter, Lady Louisa
Stuart, cannot have been an unmixed delight. "Some particulars, in
themselves too insignificant to be worth recording, may yet interest the
curious, by setting before them the manners of our ancestors," Lady
Louisa says. "Lord Dorchester, having no wife to do the honours of his
table at Thoresby, imposed that task upon his eldest daughter, as soon
as she had bodily strength for the office: which in those days required
no small share. For this mistress of a country mansion was not only to
invite--that is urge and tease--her company to eat more than human
throats could conveniently swallow, but to carve every dish, when
chosen, with her own hands. The greater the lady, the more indispensable
the duty. Each joint was carried up in its turn, to be operated upon by
her, and her alone; since the peers and knights on either hand were so
far from being bound to offer their assistance, that the very master of
the house, posted opposite her, might not act as her croupier, his
department was to push the bottle after dinner. As for the crowd of
guests, the most inconsiderable among them--the curate, or subaltern, or
squire's younger brother--if suffered through her neglect to help
himself to a slice of the mutton placed before him, would have chewed