ladies exist. A duchess goes everywhere!"

This is why Lady Josiana saw a boxing match.

Lady Josiana made only this concession to propriety--she dressed as a

man, a very common custom at that period. Women seldom travelled

otherwise. Out of every six persons who travelled by the coach from

Windsor, it was rare that there were not one or two amongst them who

were women in male attire; a certain sign of high birth.

Lord David, being in company with a woman, could not take any part in

the match himself, and merely assisted as one of the audience.

Lady Josiana betrayed her quality in one way; she had an opera-glass,

then used by gentlemen only.

This encounter in the noble science was presided over by Lord Germaine,

great-grandfather, or grand-uncle, of that Lord Germaine who, towards

the end of the eighteenth century, was colonel, ran away in a battle,

was afterwards made Minister of War, and only escaped from the bolts of

the enemy, to fall by a worse fate, shot through and through by the

sarcasm of Sheridan.

Many gentlemen were betting. Harry Bellew, of Carleton, who had claims

to the extinct peerage of Bella-aqua, with Henry, Lord Hyde, member of

Parliament for the borough of Dunhivid, which is also called Launceston;

the Honourable Peregrine Bertie, member for the borough of Truro, with

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The Man Who Laughs