"Can you tell me, sir, who that tall, stout gentleman is in the green frock-coat, with lace and tassels?... That one who is looking this way with an eye-glass." "The gentleman with red hair?" returned Mr. Patterson, to whom the question was addressed. "Yes, that one, rather sandy, but a very fine-looking man." "That is Lord Mucklebury, Mrs. Barnaby.... He is a great amateur of beauty; and upon my word he seems exceedingly taken with some fair object or other in this part of the room." The sight of land after a long voyage is delightful ... rest is delightful after labour, food after fasting; but it may be doubted if either of these joys could bear comparison with the emotion that now swelled the bosom of Mrs. Barnaby. This was the first time, to the best of her knowledge and belief, that she had ever been looked at by a lord at all ... and what a look it was!... No passing glance, no slight unmeaning regard, directed first to one and then to another beauty, but a long, steady, direct, and unshrinking stare, such as might have made many women leave the room, but which caused the heart of Mrs. Barnaby to palpitate with a degree of ecstasy which she had never felt before--no, not even when the most admired officer of a new battalion first fixed his looks upon her in former days, and advanced in the eyes of all the girls to ask her to dance; ... for no Lord _anything_ had ever done so; and thus, the fulness of her new-born joy, while it had the vigorous maturity of ripened age, glowed also with the early brightness of youth. It might indeed have been said of Mrs. Barnaby at that moment, that, "like Mrs. Malaprop and the orange-tree, she bore blossom and fruit at once." One proof of the youthful freshness of her emotion was the very naïve manner in which it was betrayed. She could not sit still ... her eyes rose and fell ... her head turned and twisted ... her reticule opened and shut ... and the happy man who set all this going must have had much less experience than my Lord Mucklebury, if he had not immediately perceived the effect of himself and his eye-glass. Could Mrs. Barnaby have known at that moment the influence produced by the presence of Miss Morrison, she would have wished her a thousand fathoms deep in the ocean; for certain it is, that nothing but her well-known little quizzical air of unquestionable Cheltenham respectability, prevented the noble lord from crossing the room, and amusing himself, without the ceremony of an introduction, in conversing with the sensitive lady, whose bright eyes and bright rouge had drawn his attention to her. As it was, however, he thought he had better not, and contented himself by turning to his ever-useful friend Captain Singleton, and saying in a tone, the familiarity of which failed not to make up for its imperiousness, "Singleton!... go and find out who that great woman is in the green satin and pink feathers ... there's a good fellow."