adies. Little Fanny drank
this;--what other sweet intoxication had she not drunk in the course of
the night?

When the supper, which was very brisk and gay, was over, and Captain
Costigan and Mrs. Bolton had partaken of some of the rack-punch that is
so fragrant at Vauxhall, the bill was called and discharged by Pen with
great generosity,--"loike a foin young English gentleman of th' olden
toime, be Jove," Costigan enthusiastically remarked. And as, when they
went out of the box, he stepped forward and gave Mrs. Bolton his arm,
Fanny fell to Pen's lot, and the young people walked away in high
good-humour together, in the wake of their seniors.

The champagne and the rack-punch, though taken in moderation by all
persons, except perhaps poor Cos, who lurched ever so little in his
gait, had set them in high spirits and good-humour, so that Fanny began
to skip and move her brisk little feet in time to the band, which was
playing waltzes and galops for the dancers. As they came up to the
dancing, the music and Fanny's feet seemed to go quicker together--she
seemed to spring, as if naturally, from the ground, and as if she
required repression to keep her there.

"Shouldn't you like a turn?" said the Prince of Fairoaks. "What fun it
would be! Mrs. Bolton, ma'am, do let me take her once round." Upon which
Mr. Costigan said, "Off wid you!" and Mrs. Bolton not refusing (indeed,
she was an old war-horse, and would have liked, at the trumpet's sound,
to have entered the arena herself), Fanny's shawl was off her back in a
minute, and she and Arthur were whirling round in a waltz in the midst
of a great deal of queer, but exceedingly joyful company.

Pen had no mishap this time with little Fanny, as he had with Miss
Blanche in old days,--at least, there was no mishap of his making. The
pair danced away with great agility and contentment,--first a waltz,
then a galop, then a waltz again, until, in the second waltz, they were
bumped by another couple who had joined the Terpsichorean choir. This
was Mr. Huxter and his pink satin young friend, of whom we have already
had a glimpse.

Mr. Huxter very probably had been also partaking of supper, for he was
even more excited now than at the time when he had previously claimed
Pen's acquaintance; and, having run against Arthur and his partner,
and nearly knocked them down, this amiable gentleman of course began
to abuse the people whom he had injured, and broke out into a volley of
slang