and the moment their pad arrives, they shall set forth.  I would accompany them on a pillion if I were not waiting for Lady Mary,(499) who has desired to bring a poor sick girl here for a few days to try the air.  You know how courteous a knight I am to distressed virgins of five years old, and that my castle-gates are always open to them.  You will, I am sure, accept this excuse for some days:  and as soon as ever my hospitality is completed, I will be ready to obey your summons, though you should send a water-pot for me.  I am in no fear of not finding you in perfect verdure; for the sun, I believe, is gone a great way off to some races or other, where his horses are to run for the King’s plate:  we have not heard of him in this neighbourhood.  Adieu!

(497) Gold fish.

(499) Lady Mary Churchill.

215 Letter 108
To Sir Richard Bentley, Esq. 
Strawberry Hill, July 9, 1754.

I only write a letter for company to the enclosed one.  Mr. Chute is returned from the Vine, and gives you a thousand thanks for your letter; and if ever he writes, I don’t doubt but it will be to you.  Gray and he come hither to-morrow, and I am promised Montagu and the Colonel(500) in about a fortnight—­How naturally my pen adds, but when does Mr. Bentley come!  I am sure Mr. Wicks wants to ask me the same question every day—­“Speak to it, Horatio!” Sir Charles Williams brought his eldest daughter hither last week:  she is one of your real admirers, and, without its being proposed to her, went on the bowling-green, and drew a perspective view of the castle from the angle, in a manner to deserve the thanks of the Committee.(501) She is to be married to my Lord Essex in a Week,(502) and I begged she would make you overseer of the works at Cashiobury.  Sir Charles told me, that on the Duke of Bedford’s wanting a Chinese house at Woburn, he said, “Why don’t your grace speak to mr.  Walpole?  He has the prettiest plan in the world for one.” —­“Oh,” replied the Duke, “but then it would be too dear!” I hope this was a very great economy, or I am sure ours would be very great extravagance:  only think of a plan for little Strawberry giving the alarm to thirty thousand pounds a year!  My dear sir, it is time to retrench!  Pray send me ’a slice of granite(503) no bigger than a Naples biscuit.

The monument to my mother is at last erected; it puts me in mind of the manner of interring the Kings of France:  when the reigning one dies, the last before him is buried.  Will you believe that I have not yet seen the tomb?  None of my acquaintance were in town, and I literally had not courage to venture alone among the Westminster-boys at the Abbey:  they are as formidable to me as the ship-carpenters at Portsmouth.  I think I have showed you the inscription, and therefore I don’t send it yet].