'except these flights, the only extraordinary thing the duchess did was
to do nothing extraordinary, for I do not call it very mad that some
pique happening between her and the Duchess of Bedford, the latter had
this distich sent to her;--

'Come with a whistle--come with a call:
Come with good-will, or come not at all.'

'I do not know whether what I am going to tell you did not border a
little upon Moorfields. The gallery where they danced was very cold.
Lord Lorn, George Selwyn, and I retired into a little room, and sat
comfortably by the fire. The duchess looked in, said nothing, and sent a
smith to take the hinges of the door oft. We understood the hint--left
the room--and so did the smith the door.'

'I must tell you,' he adds in another letter, 'of an admirable reply of
your acquaintance, the Duchess of Queensberry: old Lady Granville, Lord
Carteret's mother, whom they call _the queen-mother_, from taking upon
her to do the honours of her son's power, was pressing the duchess to
ask her for some place for herself or friends, and assured her that she
would procure it, be it what it would. Could she have picked out a
fitter person to be gracious to? The duchess made her a most grave
curtsey, and said, "Indeed, there was one thing she had set her heart
on."--"Dear child, how you oblige me by asking anything! What is it?
Tell me."--"Only that you would speak to my Lord Carteret to get me made
lady of the bedchamber to the Queen of Hungary."'

The duchess was, therefore, one of the dowagers, 'thick as flounders,'
whose proximity was irritating to the fastidious bachelor. There was,
however, another Kitty between whom and Horace a tender friendship