Their coats and breeches were of scarlet, pinked with blue silk and laced with gold; their sashes were of yellow silk, but had massive tassels of gold; and their formidable bowl-hilted rapiers were slung in shoulder-belts of velvet embroidered with silver. Their long military gloves almost met the cuffs of their coats, which were looped up to display the shirt-sleeves--a new fashion of James VII.; and everything about them was perfumed to excess. Such was the attire of the military of that day, as regulated by the "Royal Orders" of the King. Threading their way through a crowd of dancers, whose magnificent dresses of bright-hued satins and velvets laced with silver or gold, and blazing with jewels, sparkled and shone as they glided from hand to hand to the music of an orchestra perched in a recessed gallery of echoing oak, they passed into an inner apartment to pay their devoirs to the Countess, who for a time had relinquished the dance to overlook the tea-board--a solemn, arduous, and highly-important duty, which was executed by her lady-in-waiting, a starched demoiselle of very doubtful age. Though rather diminutive in person, the Countess of Dunbarton was a very beautiful woman, and possessed all that dazzling fairness of complexion which is so characteristic of her country-women. She was English, and a sister of the then Duchess of Northumberland. Her eyes were of a bright and merry blue; her hair of the richest auburn; her small face was quite enchanting in expression, and very piquant in its beauty; while her fine figure was decidedly inclined to _embonpoint_. She was one of the fashionable mirrors of the day, and the standard by whom the stately belles of Craig's Close and the Blackfriars Wynd regulated the depth of their stomachers and the length of their trains--the star of Mary d'Este's balls at Holyrood, where, in the splendour of her jewels, she had nearly rivalled the famous Duchess of Lauderdale; and though an Englishwoman, notwithstanding the jealousy and dislike which from time immemorial had existed between the two kingdoms, she was, from the suavity of her manner, the brilliancy of her wit, and the amiability of her disposition, both admired and beloved in Edinburgh. With a pretty and affected air, she held her silver pouncet-box in an ungloved and beautifully-formed hand, which was whiter than the bracelet of pearls that encircled it. Close by, upon a satin cushion, reposed a pursy, pug-nosed, and silky little lap-dog, of his late Majesty's favourite and long-eared breed. It had been a present from himself, and bore the royal cypher on its silver collar. Near her on a little tripod table of ebony stood the tea-board, with its rich equipage and a multitude of little china cups glittering with blue and gold.