at the expense of my honour, and the hazard of a thousand inconveniences!
If such frailties are sometimes excusable, they certainly are not so in
the high station in which I am placed; and it would be an ill-requital on
my part for his goodness who raised me to the rank I now fill to----"
"All this is very fine," interrupted Miss Hobart: "but is it not very
well known that he only married you because he was importuned so to do?
Since that I refer to yourself whether he has ever restrained his
inclination a single moment, giving you the most convincing proofs of
the change that has taken place in his heart, by a thousand provoking
infidelities? Is it still your intention to persevere in a state of
indolence and humility, whilst the duke, after having received the
favours, or suffered the repulses, of all the coquettes in England, pays
his addresses to the maids of honour, one after the other, and at present
places his whole ambition and desires in the conquest of that ugly
skeleton, Churchill? What! Madam, must then your prime of life be spent
in a sort of widowhood in deploring your misfortunes, without ever being
permitted to make use of any remedy that may offer? A woman must be
endowed with insuperable patience, or with an inexhaustible degree of
resignation, to bear this. Can a husband, who disregards you both night
and day, really suppose, because his wife eats and drinks heartily, as,
God be thanked, your royal highness does, that she wants nothing else
than to sleep well too? Faith, such conduct is too bad: I therefore once
more repeat that there is not a princess in the universe who would refuse
the homage of a man like Sidney, when a husband pays his addresses
elsewhere."

These reasons were certainly not morally good; but had they been still
worse the duchess would have yielded to them, so much did her heart act
in concert with Miss Hobart, to overthrow her discretion and prudence.