[202]
_St. Martin's Street, June 27._
... Her majesty has sent me a message, express, near a fortnight ago,
with an offer of a place at Court, to succeed Mrs. Haggerdorn, one of
the Germans who accompanied her to England, and who is now retiring into
her own country. 'Tis a place of being constantly about her own person,
and assisting in her toilette,--a place of much confidence, and many
comforts; apartments in the palace; a footman kept for me; a coach in
common with Mrs. Schwellenberg; 200 pounds a-year, etc.
I have been in a state of extreme disturbance ever since, from the
reluctance I feel to the separation it will cause me from all my
friends. Those, indeed, whom I most love, I shall be able to invite to
me in the palace---but I see little or no possibility of being able
to make what I most value, excursions into the country.... I repine at
losing my loved visits to Mickleham, Norbury, Chesington, Twickenham,
and Ayle sham; all these I must now forego....
You may believe how much I am busied. I have been presented at the
queen's Lodge in Windsor, and seen Mrs. Haggerdorn in office, and find
I have a place of really nothing to do, but to attend; and on Thursday
I am appointed by her majesty to go to St. James's, to see all that
belongs to me there. And I am now “fitting out” just as you were, and
all the maids and workers suppose I am going to be married, and snigger
every time they bring in any of my new attire. I do not care to publish
the affair till it is made known by authority; so I leave them to their
conjectures, and I fancy their greatest wonder is, who and where is the
sposo; for they must think it odd he should never appear!