e a sword by his side,
followed the lacqueys bearing fasces of wax candles, which he placed
a pair on each card-table, and in the silver sconces on the wainscoted
wall that was now gilt with the slanting rays of the sun, as was the
prospect of the green common beyond, with its rocks and clumps of trees
and houses twinkling in the sunshine. Groups of many-coloured figures in
hoops and powder and brocade sauntered over the green, and dappled the
plain with their shadows. On the other side from the Baroness's windows
you saw the Pantiles, where a perpetual fair was held, and heard the
clatter and buzzing of the company. A band of music was here performing
for the benefit of the visitors to the Wells. Madame Bernstein's chief
sitting-room might not suit a recluse or a student, but for those who
liked bustle, gaiety, a bright cross light, and a view of all that was
going on in the cheery busy place, no lodging could be pleasanter. And
when the windows were lighted up, the passengers walking below were
aware that her ladyship was at home and holding a card-assembly, to
which an introduction was easy enough. By the way, in speaking of the
past, I think the night-life of society a hundred years since was rather
a dark life. There was not one wax-candle for ten which we now see in a
lady's drawing-room: let alone gas and the wondrous new illuminations
of clubs. Horrible guttering tallow smoked and stunk in passages. The
candle-snuffer was a notorious officer in the theatre. See Hogarth's
pictures: how dark they are, and how his feasts are, as it were,
begrimed with tallow! In "Marriage a la Mode," in Lord Viscount
Squanderfield's grand saloons, where he and his wife are sitting yawning
before the horror-stricken steward when their party is over--there are
but eight candles--one on each card-table, and half a dozen in a brass
chandelier. If Jack Briefless convoked his friends to oysters and beer
in his chambers, Pump Court, he would have twice as many. Let us comfort
ourselves by thinking that Louis Quatorze in all his glory held his
revels in the dark, and bless Mr. Price and other Luciferous benefactors
of mankind, for banishing the abominable mutton of our youth.

So Maria with her flowers (herself the fairest flower), popped her
roses, sweet-williams, and so forth, in vases here and there, and
adorned the apartment to the best of her art. She lingered fondly over
this bowl and that dragon jar, casting but sly timid glances the