Here we are in the height of the London season, and I am sure you haven't been into ten houses, when a hundred of the very best are open to you--" I loathe the term "best houses." The tinsel ineptitude of them! For entertainment I really would sooner attend a mothers' meeting or listen to the serious British Drama--Have I read so and so's novel?
Am I going to Mrs.Chose's dance?
Do I ride in the Park?
Do I know young Thingummy of the Guards, who is going to marry Lady Betty Something?
What do I think of the Academy?
As if one could have any sentiment with regard to the Academy save regret at such profusion of fresh paint! "You want shaking up," continued my aunt.

Silly woman! If there is a thing I should abhor it would be to be shaken up.

"Come and dine with us at seven-thirty _in costume_, and I'll promise you a delightful time.

And think how proud the girls would be of showing off their _beau cousin_." _Et patiti et patita._ I am again reminded that I owe it to my position, my title.

God ha' mercy on us! To bedeck myself like a decayed mummer in a booth and frisk about in a pestilential atmosphere with a crowd of strange and uninteresting young females is the correct way of fulfilling the obligations that the sovereign laid upon the successors to the title, when he conferred the dignity of a baronetcy on my great-grandfather! Now I come to think of it the Prince Regent was that sovereign, and my ancestor did things for him at Brighton.