candlelight, or any light, than gold;" and Lady Delacour, who was afraid
that the milliner's imagination, now that it had once touched upon gold,
might be led to the vulgar idea of _ready money_, suddenly broke up the
conference, by exclaiming,

"We shall be late at Phillips's exhibition of French china. Mrs. Franks
must let us see her again to-morrow, to take into consideration your court
dress, my dear Belinda--'Miss Portman presented by Lady Delacour'--Mrs.
Franks, let her dress, for heaven's sake, be something that will make a
fine paragraph:--I give you four-and-twenty hours to think of it. I have
done a horrid act this day," continued she, after Mrs. Franks had left the
room--"absolutely written a _twisted_ note to Clarence Hervey, my
dear--but why did I tell you that? Now your head will run upon the twisted
note all day, instead of upon 'The Life and Opinions of a Lady of Quality,
related by herself.'"

After dinner Lady Delacour having made Belinda protest and blush, and
blush and protest, that her head was not running upon the twisted note,
began the history of her life and opinions in the following manner:--

"I do nothing by halves, my dear. I shall not tell you my adventures as
Gil Blas told his to the Count d'Olivarez--skipping over the _useful_
passages. I am no hypocrite, and have nothing worse than folly to conceal:
that's bad enough--for a woman who is known to play the fool is always
suspected of playing the devil. But I begin where I ought to end--with my
moral, which I dare say you are not impatient to anticipate. I never read
or listened to a moral at the end of a story in my life:--manners for me,
and morals for those that like them. My dear, you will be woefully
disappointed if in my story you expect any thing like a novel. I once
heard a general say, that nothing was less like a review than a battle;