her that her royal highness kept the maids of honour? whether she was not ashamed to come at such an unseasonable time of night into their very apartments to commit such violences? and swore that she would, the very next day, complain to the duchess.  All this confirmed Miss Temple in her mistaken notions:  and Hobart was obliged to go away at last, without being able to convince or bring to reason creatures, whom she believed to be either distracted or mad.  The next day Miss Sarah did not fail to relate this adventure to her lover, telling him how Miss Temple’s cries had alarmed the maids of honour’s apartment, and how herself and her aunt, running to her assistance, had almost surprised Miss Hobart in the very act.

Two days after, the whole adventure, with the addition of several embellishments, was made public:  the governess swore to the truth of it, and related in every company what a narrow escape Miss Temple had experienced, and that Miss Sarah, her niece, had preserved her honour, because, by Lord Rochester’s excellent advice, she had forbidden her all manner of connection with so dangerous a person.  Miss Temple was afterwards informed, that the song that had so greatly provoked her, alluded to Miss Price only:  this was confirmed to her by every person, with additional execrations against Miss Hobart, for such a scandalous imposition.  Such great coldness after so much familiarity, made many believe, that this adventure was not altogether a fiction.

This had been sufficient to have disgraced Miss Hobart at court, and to have totally ruined her reputation in London, had she not been, upon the present, as well as upon a former occasion, supported by the duchess:  her royal highness pretended to treat the whole story as romantic and visionary, or as solely arising from private pique:  she chid Miss Temple, for her impertinent credulity:  turned away the governess and her niece, for the lies with which she pretended they supported the imposture; and did many improper things in order to re-establish Miss Hobart’s honour, which, however, she failed in accomplishing.  She had her reasons for not entirely abandoning her, as will appear in the sequel.

Miss Temple, who continually reproached herself with injustice, with respect to Lord Rochester, and who, upon the faith of Killegrew’s word, thought him the most Honourable man in England, was only solicitous to find out some opportunity of easing her mind, by making him some reparation for the rigour with which she had treated him:  these favourable dispositions, in the hands of a man of his character, might have led to consequences of which she was not aware; but heaven did not allow him an opportunity of profiting by them.

Ever since he had first appeared at court he seldom failed being banished from it, at least once in the year; for whenever a word presented itself to his pen, or to his tongue, he immediately committed it to paper, or produced it in conversation, without any manner of regard to the consequences the ministers, the mistresses, and even the king himself, were frequently the subjects of his sarcasms; and had not the prince, whom he thus treated, been possessed of one of the most forgiving and gentle tempers, his first disgrace had certainly been his last.