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Lord Eldon said that 'Taylor, dining with the barristers upon the Oxford circuit, having related many wonderful things which he had done, was asked by Bearcroft, "Pray, Chevalier, as you have told us of a great many things which you have done and can do, will you be so good as to try to tell us anything which you cannot do?"

In the midst of this awful calm it was that Lady Bearcroft blurted out with loud voice "Amazing entertaining we are! so many clever people got together, too, for what?" It was worth while to have seen Lady Masham's face at that moment!

Mamma has so affronted two ladies, very influential as they call it, each Lady Masham, a favourite at court, and Lady Bearcroft, risen from the ranks, on her husband's shoulders; he, 'a man of law, Sir Benjamin Bearcroft, and very clever she is I hear, but loud and coarse; absolutely inadmissible she was thought till lately, and now, only tolerated for her husband's sake, but still have her here I must."

"I own," continued Lady Masham, "that I always thought the descriptions I heard must be exaggerated; but one is compelled to acknowledge that there is here in reality a terrible want of tact. Poor Sir Benjamin! I quite pity him, he must so see it! Though not of the first water himself, yet still he must feel, when he sees Lady Bearcroft with other people!

Helen said Lady Davenant was indeed a very kind friend of hers, but still what it could be in which Lady Bearcroft expected her assistance she could not imagine. "You need not be frightened at the word job; if that is what alarms you," continued Lady Bearcroft, "put your heart at ease, there is nothing of that sort here.

"No, no, my dear Cecilia; nothing monstrous. Leave to Lady Bearcroft the vulgar belief in court-bred monsters; we know there are no such things. Men and women there, as everywhere else, are what nature, education, and circumstances have made them.

After an unconquerable silence and all the semblance of dead stupidity, Lady Bearcroft suddenly showed signs of life, however, and she, all at once, began to talk to Helen of all people!

Of this Lady Masham had not the most distant conception; on the contrary, she was now prepared to tell a variety of odd anecdotes of Lady Bearcroft. She had seen, she said, this extraordinary person before, but had never met her in society, and delighted she was unexpectedly to find her here "quite a treat."

"Perhaps we shall find one here," said Lady Cecilia, opening a portfolio of caricatures in a different style, but they were old, and Lady Bearcroft would have thrown them aside; but Lord Davenant observed that, if they have lasted so long, they must be good, because their humour only can ensure their permanence; the personality dies with the person: for instance, in the famous old print of the minister rat-catcher, in the Westminster election, the likeness to each rat of the day is lost to us, but the ridicule on placemen ratters remains.

While she was yet speaking, Lady Bearcroft returned, and her malicious enemy, leaning back in her chair as if in expectation of the piece beginning, waited for her puppet to play or be played off.