how that the disappointment
had produced no effect upon the temper of so imperial a personage
as himself, and he invited several of the leading gentry to join his
coterie. The Dacres were among the solicited; but they were, during the
races, the guests of Mrs. Dallington Vere, whose seat was only a mile
off, and therefore were unobtainable.

Blazed the plate, sparkled the wine, and the aromatic venison sent forth
its odourous incense to the skies. The favourite cook had done wonders,
though a Sanspareil pate, on which he had been meditating for a week,
was obliged to be suppressed, and was sent up as a tourte a la Bourbon,
in compliment to his Royal Highness. It was a delightful party: all the
stiffness of metropolitan society disappeared. All talked, and laughed,
and ate, and drank; and the Protocolis and the French princes, who were
most active members of a banquet, ceased sometimes, from want of breath,
to moralize on the English character. The little Wrekins, with their
well-acted lamentations over their losses, were capital; and Sophy
nearly smiled and chattered her head this day into the reversion of the
coronet of Fitz-pompey. May she succeed! For a wilder little partridge
never yet flew. Caroline St. Maurice alone was sad, and would not be
comforted; although St. James, observing her gloom, and guessing at its
cause, had in private assured her that, far from losing, on the whole he
was perhaps even a winner.

None, however, talked more agreeable nonsense and made a more elegant
uproar than the Duke of St. James.

'These young men,' whispered Lord Squib to Annesley, 'do not know the
value of money. We must teach it them. I know too well; I find it very
dear.'

If the old physicians are correct in considering from twenty-five to
thirty-five as the period of lusty youth, Lord Squib was still a lusty
youth, though a very corpulent one indeed. The carnival of his life,
however, was nearly over, and probably the termination of the race-week
might hail him a man. He was the best fellow in the world; short and
sleek, half bald, and looked fifty; with a waist, however, which had not
yet vanished, and where Art successfully controlled rebellious Nature,
like the Austrians the Lombards. If he were not exactly a wit, he was
still, however, full of unaffected fun, and threw out the results of a
_roue_ life with considerable ease and point. He had inherited a fair
and peer-like property, which he had contrived to embarras