At present, however, the flood of light that poured from chandelier and bracket, and flashed upon the gorgeous furniture and on the red coats of the guests, seemed to forbid concealment, and certainly afforded a splendid spectacle--a diplomatic reception, or a fancy-ball, could for brilliancy scarcely have exceeded it, though the parallel went no farther; for, with all this pomp and circumstance, there was not the slightest trace of ceremony. New guests, like Yorke himself, flocked in, and stood and stared, or paraded the room; while the less recent arrivals laughed and chatted together noisily, with their backs to the fires--of which there were no less than three alight--or lolled at full length upon the damask sofas. These persons were not, upon the whole, of an aristocratic type; many of them, indeed, were of good birth, and all had taken the usual pains with their costume, but a life of dissipation had set its vulgarizing mark on them: on the seniors the pallid and exhausted look of the _roué_ was indeed rarely seen--country air and rough exercise had forbidden that--but drink and hard living had written their autographs upon them in another and worse handwriting. Blotches and pimples had indeed so erased their original likeness to gentlemen that it was even whispered by the scandalous that it was to prevent the confusion with his menials, that must needs have otherwise arisen, that the Squire of Crompton compelled his guests to wear red coats. The _habitués_ of the place, who were the contemporaries of the Squire, had, as it were, gone to seed. But there was a sprinkling of a better class, or, at all events, of a class that had not as yet sunk so low as they in the mire of debauchery: a young lord or two in their minority, whom their parents or guardians could not coerce into keeping better company; and other young gentlemen of fashion, in whose eyes Carew was "A devilish good fellow at bottom;" "Quite a character, by Jove!" and "A sort of man to know." Among these last was Mr. Frederick Chandos, who had so lately got among the chrysanthemums with his gig-wheels, and Mr. Theodore Fane, his bosom friend, who always sat beside him on his driving-seat, and in return for sharing his perils, was reported to have the whip-hand of him. Nor was old age itself without its representative in the person of Mr. Byam Byll, once a master of fox-hounds, now a pauperized gourmand, who, in consideration of his coarse wit and "gentlemen's stories," was permitted to have the run of his teeth at Crompton. This Falstaff to the Squire's Prince Hal was a rotund and portly man, like his great prototype, but singularly handsome. His smile was winning yet, and, in spite of his load of years and fat, he still considered himself agreeable to the fair sex.