This at once made George an object of interest to them all, and he was closely questioned. He answered everything that was asked him with such intelligence and pith that his new acquaintances formed a high idea of his sense. He often referred to William Fairfax, who had been with him the first summer, and William made also a fine impression. They sat until midnight, talking, and Lance had to renew the fire and the candles twice before the company parted. Next morning William came betimes and burst into George’s room while that young gentleman was still in bed. “Get up, man!” cried William, shaking him. “Here you lie sleeping like a log when you ought to be having your breakfast and making ready to see the town.” George needed no second invitation, and in a very short time was making play with his breakfast in the sitting-room reserved for Lord Fairfax. The earl was there himself, and the delightful anticipations of George and William, which were fully shared by Lance and Billy, brought a smile to his usually grave face. Lance was simply beaming. A number of his old regiment were enrolled among the governor’s body-guard, and the sight of a redcoat did him, as he said, “a world of good.” As for Billy, he had reached the state of _nil admirari_, and was determined to be surprised at nothing. On the contrary, when the tavern servants had assumed that he was a country servant, Billy had completely turned the tables on them. Nothing in the Raleigh Tavern was good enough for him. He pished and pshawed in the most approved style, treated Colonel Byrd’s and Marshal Tyler’s servants with infinite scorn, and declined to be patronized even by Sir John Peyton’s own man, who had been to London. He called them all “cornfiel’ han’s,” and, as the way generally is, he was taken at his own valuation, and reigned monarch of all he surveyed in the kitchen, where he gave more trouble than Lord Fairfax himself. However, one person could bring Billy down with neatness and despatch. This was Lance, who, although belonging to a class of white people that Billy despised, yet was capable of reporting him to “Marse George,” so Billy was wary when Lance was around. At three o’clock the coach came, and the earl and George set forth with outriders to attend the governor’s levee. It was the first time George had ever seen the earl in court-dress. He wore a splendid suit of plum-colored satin, with ruby and diamond shoebuckles, with his diamond-hilted sword, and a powdered wig. George, too, was very elegantly dressed, and as they drove up to the palace, amid a crowd of coaches and chaises of all sorts, and dismounted, there were not two such distinguished-looking persons there. George felt decidedly flurried, although he had ample self-possession to disguise it. [Illustration: THE GOVERNOR’S LEVEE]