The intrigues set afoot by the De Mogyns to get
the Duchess of Buckskin to her parties, would strike a Talleyrand
with admiration. She had a brain fever after being disappointed of an
invitation to Lady Aldermanbury's THE DANSANT, and would have committed
suicide but for a ball at Windsor. I have the following story from my
noble friend Lady Clapperclaw herself,--Lady Kathleen O'Shaughnessy that
was, and daughter of the Earl of Turfanthunder:--
'When that odious disguised Irishwoman, Lady Muggins, was struggling to
take her place in the world, and was bringing out her hidjous daughter
Blanche,' said old Lady Clapperclaw--(Marian has a hump-back and doesn't
show, but she's the only lady in the family)--'when that wretched Polly
Muggins was bringing out Blanche, with her radish of a nose, and her
carrots of ringlets, and her turnip for a face, she was most anxious--as
her father had been a cowboy on my father's land--to be patronized
by us, and asked me point-blank, in the midst of a silence at Count
Volauvent's, the French Ambassador's dinner, why I had not sent her a
card for my ball?
'"Because my rooms are already too full, and your ladyship would be
crowded inconveniently," says I; indeed she takes up as much room as an
elephant: besides I wouldn't have her, and that was flat.
'I thought my answer was a settler to her: but the next day she comes
weeping to my arms--"Dear Lady Clapperclaw," says she, "it's not for ME;
I ask it for my blessed Blanche! a young creature in her first season,
and not at your ball! My tender child will pine and die of vexation.
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