The room in which we assembled, as well as the dining-room, was of splendid dimensions, but totally void of ornament: plain white stuccoed walls, and no furniture in the one but a few travelling articles of our noble hosts; and in the other the dinner-table, chairs, and benches of the most ordinary kind, evidently brought in for the occasion. Long corridors running the whole length of the two wings (standing at right angles to each other), with numerous rooms of similar dimensions opening from them, seemed to be the plan of the building. I suppose the dining-room must have been nearly 100 feet long, nearly square, and about 18 or 20 feet high. In this the tables were laid horse-shoe fashion. In the centre of the cross-table sat Lord Uxbridge; on either hand Blucher and Wellington; then the Duke of Brunswick; the hereditary Prince of Orange; his brother Prince Frederick; Gneiseneau; Ziethen; Kleist; Dornberg; a Danish general whose name I forget; Sir Frederick Arentschild, K.G.L. (the Duke of Wellington’s favourite old hussar); Sir Sidney Smyth; Lords Hill, Pack, Picton, Elly; and a host of illustrious names, foreign and British, but not one Frenchman that I recollect. (Perhaps the affair of the morning might have caused the absence of the Duc de Berri, &c.) What names!--names familiar to every ear in the history of those exciting times--names we pronounce with respect regarding those who bear them as being removed above everyday life. But to have sat at table with them, to have heard them called out in the familiarity of everyday conversation--how strange! One can hardly imagine himself thoroughly awake on such occasions. But to return. It was my good fortune to sit between Colonel Sir F. Arentschild and another no less celebrated officer of the German Legion, Lieutenant Strenuwitz, a Pole by birth, who had signalised himself on more than one occasion in the Peninsula by attacking and capturing outposts. We broke up at an early hour (too early, I think, for old Blucher, who seemed to enjoy himself much), and retired to another room, where coffee was served, and after some little conversation we dispersed. In leaving the dining-room the Duke of Wellington stopped for a few minutes to converse with old Arentschild, and, pinned in a corner by them, I had time to contemplate, well and closely, our great leader. At that time he certainly had not a grey hair in his head. It was getting dusk when I mounted my horse to return home, and the people were beginning to discharge squibs and crackers on the street of Ninove; the houses were decorated with garlands of laurel and green boughs, so that everything wore an air of festivity.