Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/241

"How great the sympathies and antipathies are in stars that are the same or opposite I have told you before in my grandfather's case, in Mr. Pitt's, and in my own. Lord Chatham, when on a sick bed, could bear three people only to wait on him—Lady Chatham, Sarah Booby, and somebody else. My grandmamma's star and Sarah Booby's star were the same—both Venus—only grandmamma's was more moderate; she could keep it down. Mr. Pitt, when he was ill at Putney, had such an aversion to one of the footmen, that he was nervous when he heard his step; for you know people, when they are sick, can hear a pin drop: he said to me, 'Hester, do send that fellow to town.' I did not let him know why he was sent to town, but I got him off as quickly as possible: he was, notwithstanding, a good servant, clean, and had otherwise good qualities; but Mr. Pitt's and his star were different. As to myself, since I have been here, I had a professed French cook, called François—the people named him Fransees el Franjy. His skill was undoubted; yet, whenever he dressed my dinner, I was always sending for him to complain, and sometimes threw the dish in his face: a sweetmeat from his hand turned bitter in my mouth. But, what is most extraordinary of all, Miss Williams's star was so disagreeable to me that I could not bear her to be near me when I was ill:—if I was in a perspiration, it would