Lady Jersey had no more ardent admirer than Byron, whose muse was inspired to many a flight in honour of

                          “The grace of mien,
    The eye that gladdens and the brow serene;
    The glossy darkness of that clustering hair,
    Which shades, yet shows that forehead more than fair.”

And among her army of guests the Countess moved like a Queen, who could stoop to frivolity without losing a shred of dignity.  Surely never was such superabundant energy enshrined in a form so beautiful and stately.

“Shall I tell you what Lady Jersey is like?” wrote Creevey.  “She is like one of her numerous gold and silver dicky-birds that are in all the showrooms of this house.  She begins to sing at eleven o’clock, and, with the interval of the hour when she retires to her cage to rest, she sings till twelve at night without a moment’s interruption.  She changes her feathers for dinner, and her plumage both morning and evening is the most beautiful I ever saw.”

She seemed indeed incapable of fatigue.  Tongue and body alike never seemed to rest, from rising to going to bed.

“She is really wonderful,” says Lady Granville; “and how she can stand the life she leads is still more wonderful.  She sees everybody in her own house, and calls on everybody in theirs.  She is all over Paris, and at all the campagnes within ten miles, and in all petites soirees.  She begins the day with a dancing-master at nine o’clock, and never rests till midnight....  At ten o’clock yesterday morning she called for me, and we never stopped to take breath till eleven o’clock at night, when she set me down here more dead than alive, she going to end the day with the Hollands!”

A life that would have killed nine women out of ten seemed powerless to touch her.  When far advanced in the sixties she was acknowledged to be still one of the most beautiful women in England, retaining to an amazing degree the bloom and freshness of youth.  And when she appeared at a fancy-dress ball arrayed as a Sultana, in a robe of sky-blue with coral embroideries and a turban of gold and white, she was by universal consent acclaimed as the most beautiful woman there.  It may interest my lady readers to learn that she attributed her perpetual youth to the use of gruel as a substitute for soap and water.

Although Lady Jersey had admirers by the hundred among the most fascinating men in Europe, no breath of scandal ever touched her fair fame.  Indeed, she carried her virtue to the verge of prudery, and repelled with a freezing coldness the slightest approach to familiarity.  So prudish was she that on one occasion she declined to share a carriage alone with Lord John Russell, one of the least physically attractive of men, and begged General Alava to accompany them.  “Diable!” laughed the General, “you must be very little sure of yourself if you are afraid to be alone with little Lord John!”