were trusted by their mothers for the first time of their lives to the matronly care of Lady Caroline.  As we sailed up the mall with all our colours flying, Lord Petersham,(149) with his hose and legs twisted to every point of crossness, strode by us on the outside, and repassed again on the return.  At the end of’ the mall she called to him; he would not answer:  she gave a familiar spring and, between laugh and confusion, ran up to him, “My lord! my lord! why, you don’t see us!” We advanced at a little distance, not a little awkward in expectation how all this would end, for my lord never stirred his hat, or took the least notice of any body; she said, “Do you go with us, or are you going any where else?”—­“I don’t go with you, I am going somewhere else;” and away he stalked. as sulky as a ghost that nobody will speak to first.  We got into the best order we could, and marched to our barge, with a boat of French horns attending, and little Ashe singing.  We paraded some time up the river, and at last debarked at Vauxhall — there, if we had so pleased, we might have had the vivacity of our party increased by a quarrel; for a Mrs. Loyd,(150)Who is supposed to be married to Lord Haddington, seeing the two girls following Lady Petersham and Miss Ashe, said aloud, “Poor girls, I am sorry to see them in such bad company!” Miss Sparre, who desired nothing so much as the fun of seeing a duel,—­a thing which, though she is fifteen, she has never been so lucky to see,—­took due pains to make Lord March resent this; but he, who is very lively and agreeable, laughed her out of this charming frolic with a great deal of humour.  Here we picked up Lord Granby, arrived very drunk from Jenny’s Whim;(151) where, instead of going to old Strafford’s(152) catacombs to make honourable love, he had dined with Lady Fanny,(153) and left her and eight other women and four other men playing at brag.  He would fain have made over his honourable love upon any terms to poor Miss Beauclerc, who is very modest, and did not know at all what to do with his whispers or his hands.  He then addressed himself to the Sparre, who was very well disposed to receive both; but the tide of champagne turned, he hiccupped at the reflection of his marriage (of which he is wondrous sick), and only proposed to the girl to shut themselves up and rail at the world for three weeks.  If all the adventures don’t conclude as you expect in the beginning of a paragraph, you must not wonder, for I am not making a history, but relating one strictly as it happened, and I think with full entertainment enough to content you.  At last, we assembled in our booth, Lady Caroline in the front, with the vizor of her hat erect, and looking gloriously jolly and handsome.  She had fetched my brother Orford from the next box, where he was enjoying himself with his petite partie, to help us to mince chickens.  We minced seven chickens into a china dish, which Lady Caroline stewed over a lamp with three pats of