Lady R.’s sticking close to one another, their father pushing them on together, like two decanters in a bottle-coaster, with such magnificent diamond labels round their necks!” Encouraged by Clarence Hervey’s laughter, Lady Delacour went on to mimic what she called the hoop awkwardness of all her acquaintance; and if these could have failed to divert Belinda, it was impossible for her to be serious when she heard Clarence Hervey declare that he was convinced he could manage a hoop as well as any woman in England, except Lady Delacour. “Now here,” said he, “is the purblind dowager, Lady Boucher, just at the door, Lady Delacour; she would not know my face, she would not see my beard, and I will bet fifty guineas that I come into a room in a hoop, and that she does not find me out by my air--that I do not betray myself, in short, by my masculine awkwardness.” “I hold you to your word, Clarence,” cried Lady Delacour. “They have let the purblind dowager in; I hear her on the stairs. Here--through this way you can go: as you do every thing quicker than any body else in the world, you will certainly be full dressed in a quarter of an hour; I’ll engage to keep the dowager in scandal for that time. Go! Marriott has old hoops and old finery of mine, and you have all-powerful influence, I know, with Marriott: so go and use it, and let us see you in all your glory--though I vow I tremble for my fifty guineas.” Lady Delacour kept the dowager in scandal, according to her engagement, for a good quarter of an hour; then the dresses at the drawing-room took up another quarter; and, at last, the dowager began to give an account of sundry wonderful cures that had been performed, to her certain knowledge, by her favourite concentrated extract or anima of quassia. She entered into the history of the negro slave named Quassi, who discovered this medical wood, which he kept a close secret till Mr. Daghlberg, a magistrate of Surinam, wormed it out of him, brought a branch of the tree to Europe, and communicated it to the great Linnaeus--when Clarence Hervey was announced by the title of “The Countess de Pomenars.” “An émigrée--a charming woman!” whispered Lady Delacour “she was to have been at the drawing-room to-day but for a blunder of mine: ready dressed she was, and I didn’t call for her! Ah, Mad. de Pomenars, I am actually ashamed to see you,” continued her ladyship; and she went forward to meet Clarence Hervey, who really made his entrée with very composed assurance and grace. He managed his hoop with such skill and dexterity, that he well deserved the praise of being a universal genius. The Countess de Pomenars spoke French and broken English incomparably well, and she made out that she was descended from the Pomenars of the time of Mad. de Sevigné: she said that she had in her possession several original letters of Mad. de Sevigné, and a lock of Mad. de Grignan’s fine hair.