As he could not for his life imagine what Miss Stewart wished him to do, or what she would be at, he thought upon reforming his establishment of mistresses, to try whether jealousy was not the real occasion of her uneasiness.  It was for this reason that, after having solemnly declared he would have nothing more to say to the Duchess of Cleveland, since her intrigue with Churchill, he discarded, without any exception, all the other mistresses which he had in various parts of the town.  The Nell Gwyns, the Misses Davis, and the joyous rain of singers and dancers in his majesty’s theatre, were all dismissed.  All these sacrifices were ineffectual:  Miss Stewart continued to torment, and almost to drive the king to distraction; but his majesty soon after found out the real cause of this coldness.

This discovery was owing to the officious Duchess of Cleveland, who, ever since her disgrace, had railed most bitterly against Miss Stewart as the cause of it, and against the king’s weakness, who, for an inanimate idiot, had treated her with so much indignity.  As some of her grace’s creatures were still in the king’s confidence, by their means she was informed of the king’s uneasiness, and that Miss Stewart’s behaviour was the occasion of it—­and as soon as she had found the opportunity she had so long wished for, she went directly into the king’s cabinet, through the apartment of one of his pages called Chiffinch.  This way was not new to her.

The king was just returned from visiting Miss Stewart, in a very ill humour:  the presence of the Duchess of Cleveland surprised him, and did not in the least diminish it:  she, perceiving this, accosted him in an ironical tone, and with a smile of indignation.  “I hope,” said she, “I may be allowed to pay you my homage, although the angelic Stewart has forbid you to see me at my own house.  I will not make use of reproaches and expostulations, which would disgrace myself:  still less will I endeavour to excuse frailties which nothing can justify, since your constancy for me deprives me of all defence, considering I am the only person you have honoured with your tenderness, who has made herself unworthy of it by ill conduct.  I come now, therefore, with no other intent than to comfort and to condole with you upon the affliction and grief into which the coldness, or new-fashioned chastity of the inhuman Stewart have reduced your majesty.”  These words were attended by a fit of laughter, as unnatural and strained as it was insulting and immoderate, which completed the king’s impatience:  he had, indeed, expected that some bitter jest would follow this preamble; but he did not suppose she would have given herself such blustering airs, considering the terms they were then upon; and, as he was preparing to answer her:  “be not offended,” said she, “that I take the liberty of laughing at the gross manner in which you are imposed upon:  I cannot bear to see that such particular affectation should make you