three hours.  The same night all the town was at the Duchess of Richmond’s.  Lady Albemarle(624) was at tredille; the Duke of Bedford came up to the table, and told her he must speak to her as soon as the pool was over.  You may guess whether she knew a card more that she played.  When she had finished, the Duke told her he should wait on her the next morning, to make the demand in form.  She told it directly to me and my niece Waldegrave, who was in such transport for her friend, that she promised the Duke of Bedford to kiss him, and hurried home directly to write to her sisters.(625) The Duke asked no questions about fortune, but has since slipped a bit of paper into Lady Elizabeth’s hand, telling her, he hoped his son would live, but if he did not, there was something for her; it was a jointure of three thousand pounds a-year, and six hundred pounds pin-money.  I dined with her the next day, at Monsieur de Guerchy’s, and as I hindered the company from wishing her joy, and yet joked with her myself, Madame de Guerchy said, she perceived I would let nobody else tease her, that I might have all the teasing to myself She has behaved in the prettiest manner, in the world, and would not appear at a vast assembly at Northumberland-house on Tuesday, nor at a great haymaking at Mrs. Pitt’s on Wednesday.  Yesterday they all went to Woburn, and tomorrow the ceremony is to be performed; for the Duke has not a moment’s patience till she is breeding.

You would have been diverted at Northumberland-house; Besides the sumptuous liveries, the illuminations in the garden, the pages, the two chaplains in waiting in their gowns and scarves, `a l’Irlandaise,(626) and Dr. Hill and his wife, there was a most delightful Countess, who has Just imported herself from Mecklenburgh.  She is an absolute princess of Monomotapa; but I fancy you have seen her. for her hideousness and frantic accoutrements are so extraordinary, that they tell us she was hissed in the Tuileries.  She crossed the drawing-room on the birthday to speak to the Queen en amie, after standing with her back to Princess Amelia.  The queen was so ashamed of her, that she said cleverly, “This is not the dress at Strelitz; but this woman always dressed herself as capriciously there, as your Duchess of Queensberry does here.”

The haymaking at Wandsworth-hill(627) did not succeed from the excessive cold of the night; I proposed to bring one of the cocks into the great room, and make a bonfire.  All the beauties were disappointed, and all the macaronies afraid of getting the toothache.

The Guerchys are gone to Goodwood, and were to have been carried to Portsmouth, but Lord Egmont(628) refused to let the ambassador see the place.  The Duke of Richmond was in a rage, and I do not know how it has ended, for the Duke of Bedford defends the refusal, and says, they certainly would not let you see Brest.  The Comte d’Ayen is going a longer tour. he is liked here.  The three great ambassadors danced