THEY seated themselves at a round table, on which everything seemed brilliant and sparkling; nothing heavy, nothing oppressive. There was scarcely anything that Sidonia disliked so much as a small table, groaning, as it is aptly termed, with plate. He shrunk from great masses of gold and silver; gigantic groups, colossal shields, and mobs of tankards and flagons; and never used them except on great occasions, when the banquet assumes an Egyptian character, and becomes too vast for refinement. At present, the dinner was served on Sèvres porcelain of Rose du Barri, raised on airy golden stands of arabesque workmanship; a mule bore your panniers of salt, or a sea-nymph proffered it you on a shell just fresh from the ocean, or you found it in a bird’s nest; by every guest a different pattern. In the centre of the table, mounted on a pedestal, was a group of pages in Dresden china. Nothing could be more gay than their bright cloaks and flowing plumes, more elaborately exquisite than their laced shirts and rosettes, or more fantastically saucy than their pretty affected faces, as each, with extended arm, held a light to a guest. The room was otherwise illumined from the sides. The guests had scarcely seated themselves when the two absent ones arrived. ‘Well, you did not divide, Vavasour,’ said Lord Henry. ‘Did I not?’ said Vavasour; ‘and nearly beat the Government. You are a pretty fellow!’ ‘I was paired.’ ‘With some one who could not stay. Your brother, Mrs. Coningsby, behaved like a man, sacrificed his dinner, and made a capital speech.’ ‘Oh! Oswald, did he speak? Did you speak, Harry?’ ‘No; I voted. There was too much speaking as it was; if Vavasour had not replied, I believe we should have won.’ ‘But then, my dear fellow, think of my points; think how they laid themselves open!’ ‘A majority is always the best repartee,’ said Coningsby. ‘I have been talking with Montacute,’ whispered Lord Henry to Coningsby, who was seated next to him. ‘Wonderful fellow! You can conceive nothing richer! Very wild, but all the right ideas; exaggerated of course. You must get hold of him after dinner.’ ‘But they say he is going to Jerusalem.’ ‘But he will return.’ ‘I do not know that; even Napoleon regretted that he had ever re-crossed the Mediterranean. The East is a career.’