present to the memory of all mankind, as it was to her own.

My mother presented me to her ladyship. The ceremony of introduction
between a young gentleman and an old lady of those times, performed on his
part with a low bow and look of profound deference, on hers, with back
stepping-curtsy and bridled head, was very different from the nodding,
bobbing trick of the present day. As soon as the _finale_ of Lady de
Brantefield's sentence, touching honour, happiness, and family connexion,
would permit, I receded, and turned from the mother to the daughter, little
Lady Anne Mowbray, a light fantastic figure, bedecked with "daisies pied,"
covered with a profusion of tiny French flowers, whose invisible wire
stalks kept in perpetual motion as she turned her pretty head from side to
side. Smiling, sighing, tittering, flirting with the officers round her,
Lady Anne appeared, and seemed as if she delighted in appearing, as perfect
a contrast as possible to her august and formidable mother. The daughter
had seen the ill effect of the mother's haughty demeanour, and, mistaking
reverse of wrong for right, had given reserve and dignity to the winds.
Taught by the happy example of Colonel Topham, who preceded me, I learned
that the low bow would have been here quite out of place. The sliding bow
was for Lady Anne, and the way was to dash into nonsense with her directly,
and full into the midst of nonsense I dashed. Though her ladyship's perfect
accessibility seemed to promise prompt reply to any question that could be
asked; yet the single one about which I felt any curiosity, I could not
contrive to introduce during the first three hours I was in her ladyship's
company. There was such a quantity of preliminary nonsense to get through,
and so many previous questions to be disposed of: for example, I was first
to decide which of three colours I preferred, all of them pronounced to be
the _prettiest_ in, the universe, _boue de Paris, oeil de l'empereur_, and
a _suppressed sigh_.