n, ladies and---- Ah! how are you, Captain? This is
kind of you---- Mr. Hinton, your humble servant---- Whist, dancing,
blind-hookey, and negus--walk in--and, Captain Phil,' added he in a
whisper, 'a bit of supper by-and-by below-stairs.'

'I must tell you an excellent thing, Rooney, before I forget it,' said
O'Grady, turning the host's attention away from the door as he spoke,
and inventing some imaginary secret for the occasion; while I followed
his grace, who now was so inextricably jammed up in the dense mob that
any recognition of him would have been very difficult, if not actually
impossible.

For some time I could perceive that the duke's attention was devoted to
the conversation about him. Some half-dozen ladies were carrying on a
very active and almost acrimonious controversy on the subject of dress;
not, however, with any artistic pretension of regulating costume or
colour, not discussing the rejection of an old or the adoption of a
new mode, but with a much more practical spirit of inquiry they were
appraising and valuing each other's finery, in the most sincere and
simple way imaginable.

'Seven-and-sixpence a yard, my dear; you 'll never get it less, I assure
you.' 'That's elegant lace, Mrs. Mahony; was it run, ma'am?' Mrs. Mahony
bridled at the suggestion, and replied that, though neither her lace nor
her diamonds were Irish---- 'Six breadths, ma'am, always in the skirt,'
said a fat, little, dumpy woman, holding up her satin petticoat in
evidence.

'I say, Hinton,' whispered the duke, 'I hope they won't end by an
examination of us. But what the deuce is going on here?'

This remark was caused by a very singular movement in the room.
The crowd which had succeeded to the dancers, and filled the large
drawing-room from end to end, now fell back to either wall, leaving a
space of about a yard wide down the entire centre of the room, as though
some performance was about to be enacted or some procession to march
there.

'What can it be?' said the duke; 'some foolery of O'Grady's, depend upon
it; for look at him up there talking to the band.'

As he spoke, the musicians struck up the grand march in _Blue Beard_,
and Mrs. Paul Rooney appeared in the open space, in all the plenitude of
her charms--a perfect blaze of rouge, red feathers, and rubies--marching
in solemn state. She moved along in time to the music, followed by Paul,
whose cunning eyes twinkled with more than a common shrewdness, as he
peered h