the King and Queen's hand, the week after next.

Marianne is busy learning to make shoes. Archy was so pleased that he
has begun. The Shoemaker says he does very well, but he thinks Lord
James [Murray] understands better. The Master is a Scotchman. What
think you of Princess Charlotte learning the trade? It rather
discomposes me, as it is not an amusement for a Queen of England.


A novel occupation was absorbing the attention of the fashionable world.
The craze for making shoes suddenly obsessed Society. Shoemakers
unexpectedly found themselves the most favoured of mortals. Lessons in
their art were demanded on all sides and at all costs. They were so busy
teaching it, they had little time to practise it. Men and women alike
would forego engagements while they strove to perfect themselves in the
new hobby; and the lady who, at balls, could boast that her feet had been
shod by her own fair hands was an object of envy to all the less talented.
[18]

The Stanhopes threw themselves with avidity into the new pastime, and
still in existence are the little cards which they had printed in jest
announcing that this new profession was "Carried on at Cannon Hall and
Grosvenor Square." Mrs Stanhope apparently viewed the occupation with
equanimity, save when it became the recreation of Royalty. Nevertheless it
seems occasionally to have interfered seriously with her arrangements.
That same month she writes:--


I have not seen Archy of some days, but I think I shall this morning
as I have sent an Opera ticket for either him or Lord James yesterday,