On one occasion at the ducal villa,
his Highness, who spoke English perfectly, said as she entered the
room, "Here comes the Queen of the Baths!" "He calls me his Queen,"
said she, turning to the surrounding circle with a magnificent wave of
the hand and delightedly complacent smile. It was not exactly _that_
that the Duke had said, but he was immensely amused, as were we all,
for some days afterwards.
She was a stout old lady, with large rubicund face and big blue eyes,
surrounded by very abundant grey curls. She used to play, or profess
to play, the harp, and adopted, as she explained, a costume for the
purpose. This consisted of a loose, flowing garment, much like a
muslin surplice, which fell back and allowed the arm to be seen when
raised for performance on her favourite instrument. The arm probably
was, or had once been, a handsome one. The large grey head, and
the large blue eyes, and the drooping curls, were also raised
simultaneously, and the player looked singularly like the picture of
King David similarly employed, which I have seen as a frontispiece in
an old-fashioned prayer-book. But the specialty of the performance was
that, as all present always said, no sound whatever was heard to issue
from the instrument! "Attitude is everything," as we have heard in
connection with other matters; but with dear old Mrs. Stisted at her
harp it was absolutely and literally so to the exclusion of all else!
She and the good old colonel--he _was_ a truly good and benevolent
man, and, indeed, I believe she was a good and charitable woman,
despite her manifold absurdities and eccentricities--used to drive out
in the evening among her subjects--_her_ subjects, for neither I
nor anybody else ever heard him called King of the Baths!--in an
old-fashioned, very shabby and very high-hung phaeton, sometimes with
her niece Charlotte--an excellent creature and universal favourite--by
her side, and the colonel on the seat behind, ready to offer the
hospitality of the place by his side to any mortal so favoured by the
queen as to have received such an invitation.
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