What a medley and confusion it was! Women with enormous head-dresses, wide hoops and high-heeled shoes, patched, powdered, painted, courtesying, smirking, and grimacing. "Your ladyship is vastly kind. Shall wait on you with pleasure. Not _real_ di'monds, ma'am? I protest. I have it from the best authority. Fie! my lord, I thought you were more gallant. The Earl, as I live. Come back from the grand tour with a wife! Whose wife? La! Sir Marmaduke, I vow you make me blush. The king hath had another interview with the favourite. Angry words, and post-horses ordered on the north road. Too good news to be true. Mrs. Betty, you look charmingly. What conquests you must have made at the Bath. Here's the bishop! Madam, your humble servant;" and so on till the stream of nothings swelled into an unintelligible babble. And out of this concourse of so-called friends, this turmoil of so-called conversation, was there one form amongst the throng that could call the blood to her cheek, the light to her eye? One voice that fell sweetly on her ear, that woke an echo responsive in her heart? Yes, on reflection there was one--nay, there were two or three--half-a-dozen--a score--but it seemed that, of late, her charms had ceased to work, her glances to fascinate. Ten compliments--she counted them on her fingers--made the sum total of her triumphs last night. Harry St. Leger devoted himself to the bread-and-butter hoyden. The handsome colonel had drunk too freely of claret to be available. The marquis was wholly taken up with Mistress Masters (who, and what, she was nobody knew!) Two or three snuff-taking admirers simpered, but did not commit themselves. The duke passed her with a bow, and it was a weary world! As she came to this conclusion, a tap at the door announced the arrival of her waiting-maid with the daily dish of chocolate. Contrary to custom, that demure person did not depart after she set it down. "What is it, child?" asked Lady Bellinger, not very good-humouredly, because of her reflections. "Speak up, and don't stand staring there as if you'd seen a ghost!" "It's my lord," answered the waiting-maid, tossing her head, in imitation of her mistress. "My lord bade me ask your ladyship if you were up, and if you could see him now directly, before he gets into his coach." "My lord!" repeated his wife, in a tone of surprise, that sufficiently attested the infrequency of such visits, "what _can_ my lord want with me at this early hour? How am I looking, child? Quick! Give me those drops off the chimney-piece--a clean cap, the one trimmed with pink, you fool!--Put a touch of colour in my cheeks; I declare my face is like death! Draw that window-curtain. Now you may tell him he can come in."