Dancing has begun in a tentative sort of way, when there is a sudden pause, and "God Save the Queen" is heard in the front hall. The Prince and Princess of Wales have arrived, and their entrance is a pageant worth seeing. With courtly grace and pretty pomp, the host and hostess usher their royal guests into the great gallery, walled with the canvasses of Rubens, which serves as a dancing-room. Then the fun begins, and the bright hours fly swiftly till one o'clock suggests the tender thought of supper, which is served on gold plate and Sevres china in a garden-tent of Gobelins tapestry. "'What a perfect family!' exclaimed Hugo Bohun, as he extracted a couple of fat little birds from their bed of aspic jelly. 'Everything they do in such perfect taste. How safe you were to have ortolans for supper!'"[24] Next in my recollection to Grosvenor House, but after a considerable interval, comes Stafford House. This is a more pretentious building than the other; built by the Duke of York and bought by the Duke of Sutherland, with a hall and staircase designed by Barry, perfect in proportion, and so harmonious in colouring that its purple and yellow _scagliola_ might deceive the very elect into the belief that it is marble. There, as at Grosvenor House, were wealth and splendour and the highest rank; a hospitable host and a handsome hostess; but the peculiar feeling of welcome, which distinguished Grosvenor House, was lacking, and the aspect of the whole place, on an evening of entertainment, was rather that of a mob than of a party.