with the spirit and ends generally with the flesh, when he makes his addresses to holy virgins.”  Presently, she teased her sister about this same young man.  “Count Tarrocco is just come in,” she wrote.  “He is the only person I have excepted in my general order to receive no company—­I think I see you smile—­but I am not so far gone as to stand in need of absolution; though as my heart is deceitful, and the Count very agreeable, you may think that even though I should not want an absolution, I would nevertheless be glad to have an indulgence.—­No such thing.  However, as I am a heretic, and you no confessor, I shall make no more declarations on this head.—­The design of the Count’s visit is a ball;—­more pleasure—­I shall be surfeited.”

The “phlegm of the country” surprised Lady Mary, who declared that it was not from Austria that one could write with vivacity—­and by her letters at once disproved her statement.  According to her, amours and quarrels were carried on calmly and almost good-temperedly.  Strong feelings only came into play when points of ceremony were concerned.  A man not only scorned to marry a woman of family less illustrious than his own, but even to make love to her—­“the pedigree is much more considered by them than either the complexion or features of their mistresses.  Happy are the shes that can number among their ancestors Counts of the Empire; they have neither occasion for beauty, money, or good conduct to get them husbands.”  How far this passion for rank and precedence went is indicated by an amusing incident related by Lady Mary.

“’Tis not long since two coaches, meeting in a narrow street at night, the ladies in them not being able to adjust the ceremonial of which should go back, sat there with equal gallantry till two in the morning, and were both so fully determined to die upon the spot, rather than yield in a point of that importance, that the street would never have been cleared till their deaths, if the emperor had not sent his guards to part them; and even then they refused to stir, till the expedient was found out of taking them both out in chairs exactly at the same moment; after which it was with some difficulty the pas was decided between the two coachmen, no less tenacious of their rank than the ladies.”

Lady Mary herself was, of course, unaffected, because, as the wife of an ambassador, she, by their own customs, had the pas before all other ladies—­to the great envy of the town.

Lady Mary, who had had enough of solitude during her long residence in Yorkshire, now in Vienna was determined to enjoy herself and flung herself into all the social gaieties.  She went everywhere and met everyone.  She dined at the villa of Count Schoenbrunn, the Vice-Chancellor; she attended all the assemblies of Madame Rabutin and the other leaders of society, and all the “gala days”; she danced; she went to the theatre, and, then, as a contrast, to a nunnery, which left her unhappy, as, indeed, she put on record: