The guests of his lordship's dinner party were the resident gentry, with their portly wives and blooming daughters, come to meet the London visitors of Hautville Park; and a great many bright uniforms mingled among the masses of silken drapery, feathers, jewels, black broadcloth, and tulle. Lady Juliana kept her small territory at her end of the table in a continual ripple of delight by her quips and coquetries. She was in surprising spirits, for was not his Grace the Duke of Piermont on her right hand, and Sir Akerat Breckinridge, who was a slain subject, on her left? His Grace, who was an ordinary-looking young man, with a bright, wholesome complexion, and pleasantly sparkling eyes, seemed almost bewitched by my lady's rapid flippancies; and watched her face as one might watch the play of the aurora borealis, shooting and dancing in the midnight sky. "Who is that lady in the black velvet?" asked the duke. "Strange face! Most unlike any I have ever seen before." "Where? Oh, with Harry Falconcourt? That is Miss Walsingham, my companion, adviser, censurer, and sheep-dog in general." "I haven't seen such a face in my life before," continued the young duke, with deepening earnestness; "and it is so wholly stripped of animal beauty that the beauty that bursts from every look and tone is so mysterious. That is a countenance graced by goodness, bravery, candor, devotion. There are faces graced by bright eyes, an arched nostril, a small mouth; a row of white teeth, or a waxen complexion. Which is the greater charm, do you think?" "I did not know you were such a physiognomist," said Lady Juliana. "Pray read _me_, my lord." He looked over the arch face with the plausible smile, the graceful features, the peach-like bloom, and a faint shadow crossed his brow. "You would be sinking in the first storm, Lady Juliana." "Cousin Julie has suddenly subsided," said Harry Falconcourt, looking up to the head of the table. "A minute since she was sparkling as champagne, now she is tame as lemonade. What do you suppose has occurred, Miss Walsingham? A mutiny between her subjects?" "Extraordinary disposition of the Brand estates down in Surrey," said a voice opposite. "They all go to a woman as hideous as one of Macbeth's witches, and the only scion of the race must either marry her or lose them." "Is not that captain St. Udo Brand, of the Guards?" asked a gentleman in uniform. "The same, major." "Fine soldier, brave man. Did you see the gallant mention of him in the latest _American War Gazette_? Cut his way through three thousand of the enemy with his handful of Vermonters." "A daring deed, major." "Nothing when you know the vast nature of the man. He needed such scenes as are described in the sickening records of war to stir up the lion in him, and to bring out the gentleness too. He is the darling of his company--many a cheer, and I'll not be afraid to say a blessing also has greeted him in his tender visits to his suffering boys."