h a gay and merry company that stood, and moved,
chatted and laughed, within the narrow confines of that small
second-floor room in the gloomy house in Bath Street.

The walls themselves were dingy and bare, washed down with some grayish
color, which had long since been defaced by the grime and dust of
London. Thick curtains of a nondescript hue fell in straight folds
before each window, and facing these there was another door--double
paneled--which apparently led to an inner room.

But the place itself was brilliantly illuminated with many wax candles
set in chandeliers. These stood on the several small tables which were
dotted about the room.

These tables--covered with green baize, and a number of chairs of
various shapes and doubtful solidity were the only furniture of the
room, but in an arched recess in the wall a plaster figure holding a
cornucopia, from whence fell in thick profusion the plaster presentments
of the fruits of this earth, stood on an elevated pedestal, which had
been draped with crimson velvet.

The goddess of Fortune, with a broken nose and a paucity of fingers,
dominated the brilliant assembly, from the height of her crimson throne.
Her head had been crowned with a tall peaked modish beaver hat, from
which a purple feather rakishly swept over the goddess's left ear. An
ardent devotee had deposited a copper coin in her extended, thumbless
hand, whilst another had fixed a row of candle stumps at her feet.

There was nothing visible in this brilliantly lighted room of the sober
modes to which the eye of late had become so accustomed. Silken doublets
of bright and even garish colors stood out in bold contrast against the
gray monotone of the walls and hangings. Fantastic buttons, tags and
laces, gorgeously embroidered cuffs and collars edged with priceless
Mechlin or d'Alencon, bunches of ribands at knee and wrists, full
periwigs and over-wide boot-hose tops were everywhere to be seen, whilst
the clink of swords against the wooden boards and frequent volleys of
loudly spoken French oaths, testified to the absence of those Puritanic
fashions and customs which had become the general rule even in London.

Some of the company sat in groups round the green-topped tables whereon
cards or dice and heaps of gold and smaller coins lay in profusion.
Others stood about watching the games or chatting to one another. Mostly
men they were, some old, some young--but there were women too, women in
showy kirtl