The coming dinner, too, engrossed some share of her thoughts; for it was a grand entertainment, to which all Lady Hester's most distinguished friends were invited. An Archduke and a Cardinal were to make part of the company, and Kate looked forward to meeting these great personages with no common interest. It was less the vulgar curiosity of observing the manners and bearing of distinguished characters, than the delight she felt in following out some child-invented narrative of her future life, some fancied story of her own career, wherein Princes and Prelates were to figure, and scenes of splendor and enjoyment to follow each other in rapid succession. CHAPTER XXXIII. THE CONCLUSION OF A “GRAND DINNER.” LADY HESTER'S dinner of that day was a “grand one,” that is to say, it was one of those great displays which, from time to time, are offered up as sacrifices to the opinion of the world. Few of her own peculiar set were present. Some she omitted herself; others had begged off of their own accord. Midchekoff, however, was there; for, however accustomed to the tone and habits of a life of mere dissipation, he possessed every requirement for mixing with general society. It was true he was not fond of meeting “Royal Highnesses,” before whom his own equivocal rank sank into insignificance; nor did he love “Cardinals,” whose haughty pretensions always over-topped every other nobility. To oblige Lady Hester, however, he did come, and condescended, for “the nonce,” to assume his most amiable of moods. The Marchesa Guardoni, an old coquette of the days of the French Empire, but now a rigid devotee, and a most exclusive moralist; a few elderly diplomates, of a quiet and cat-like smoothness of manner, with certain notabilities of the Court, made up the party. There were no English whatever; Jekyl, who made out the list, well knowing that Florence offered none of a rank sufficiently distinguished, except Norwood, whose temporary absence from the city was rather a boon than the reverse; for the noble Viscount, when not “slang,” was usually silent, and, by long intercourse with the Turf and its followers, had ceased to feel any interest in topics which could not end in a wager.