The girl thinks he is certainly the _nicest_ person _here_. By a singular association of ideas, the whole thing reminds the General of the cavalry action at Gorewallah, and his energetic reminiscences of that brilliant affair are by no means lost on the bystanders. “Blanche, my dear, there’s Sir Roger Rearsby--most distinguished officer. What?--I was his brigade-major at Chutney, and we--D’Orville, _you_ know that man--how d’ye mean?--why, it’s Colonel Chuffins. I pulled him from under his horse in the famous charge of the Kedjerees, and stood across him for two hours--_two hours_, by the god of war!--till I’d rallied the Kedjerees, and we swept everything before us. I suppose you’ll allow Gorewallah was the best thing of the war. Zounds! I don’t believe the Sepoys have done talking of it yet! Look ye here: Marsh Mofussil occupied the heights, and Bahawdar Bang was detached to make a demonstration in our rear. Well, sir----” At this critical juncture, and ere the General had time to explain the strategy by which Bahawdar Bang’s manœuvre was defeated, he and his party had been swept onward with the tide to where a doorway stemmed the crowd into a mass of struggling confusion. Lappets and feathers waved to and fro like a grove of poplars in a breeze; fans were broken, and soft cheeks scratched against epaulettes and such accoutrements of war; here and there a pair of moustaches towered above the surface, like the yards of some tall bark in a storm; whilst ever and anon a heavy dowager, like some plunging seventy-four that answers not her helm, came surging through the mass with the sheer force of that specific gravity which is not to be denied. As the state-rooms are reached, the crowd becomes more dense and the heat insufferable. A red cord, stretched tightly the whole length of the room, offers an insuperable barrier to the impetuous, and compels the panting company to defile in due order of precedence--“first come first served” being here, as elsewhere, the prevailing maxim. And now, people being obliged to stand still, make the best of it, and begin to talk, their remarks being as original and interesting as those of a well-dressed crowd usually are. “Wawt a crush--aw”--says Captain Lacquers, skilfully warding off from Blanche the whole person of a stout naval officer, and sighing to think of the tarnish his beloved hessians have sustained by being trodden on--“there’s Lady Crane and the Miss Cranes--that’s Rebecca, the youngest, she’s going to be presented, poor girl!--aw--she’s painfully ugly, Miss Kettering--aw--makes me ill to look at her.” Poor Rebecca! she’s not pretty, at least in a court dress, and is dreadfully frightened besides. She knows the rich Miss Kettering by sight, and admires her honestly, and envies her too, and would give anything to change places with her now, for she has a slight _tendresse_ for good-looking, unmeaning Lacquers. Take comfort, Rebecca, you will hardly condescend