to town, he imagined that you had interdicted my coming till your return, and is always asking me whether what I am doing is allowed.”  That was March 12th; between that and the 17th she seems to have met Sheridan every day and nearly every night.  “I must tell you, by the by ... that I am in great request this year....  I have had three violent declarations of love—­one from an old man, another from a very young one, and the third between the other two....  Pray come back.  If you stay long in Prussia, Heaven knows what may happen.”

In August of the same year she writes again.  “Sheridan call’d in the morning and found out that I was alone, and told me he would dine with me.  I thought, of course, he was in joke, but, point du tout, he arriv’d at dinner, dined, and stayed the whole evening.  He was very pleasant, but—­it was not you, and the seeing anybody only increas’d my regrets, which I suppose were pretty visible, for every five minutes he kept saying:  ’How I am wasting all my efforts to entertain you, while you are grieving that you cannot change me into Lord Leveson.  You would not be so grim if he was beaming on you.’  At length, as I thought he was preparing to pass the night as well as the evening with me, and as he began to make some fine speeches I did not quite approve of, I order’d my Chair, to get rid of him.  This did not succeed, for as I had no place to go to, he follow’d me about to Anne’s and Lady D——­’s, where I knew I should not be let in, and home again.  But, luckily, I got in time enough to order every one to be denied, and ran upstairs, while I heard him expostulating with the porter....”  It does not appear, from this narrative, that the hunted fair was seriously annoyed at being hunted, and the implication of Lord Granville in the unpleasant business is patent.  Next year she has asked her persecutor to help Antinous at his election, for his reply, beginning “Dear Traitress,” is given here.

After that, peace or silence, until 1802, when Sheridan changed his tactics.

“The opera was beautiful....  The Prince paid us two visits, but our chief company were Hare, Grey, and Sheridan, the latter persecuting me in every pause of the music and telling me he knew such things of you, could give me such incontrovertible proofs of your falsehood, and not only falsehood but treachery to me, that if I had one grain of pride or spirit left I should fly you.  And guess what I answered, you who call me jealous.  I told him I had such entire reliance on your faith, such confidence in your truth, that I should doubt my own eyes if they witness’d against your word.  He pitied me, and said:  ‘How are the mighty fallen,’ and then went on telling me things without end to drive me mad.”  That was in March.  In August she writes, actually under siege:  “Here I am quite alone in C. Square ... no carriage to watch for, no rap at the door ... and alas! no chance of hearing your step upon the stair....  Whilst I was regretting