een them?'

'Seen whom?'

'The most knowing _forestieri_ we ever had. We have been speaking of
nothing else the whole evening. Has not Caroline told you? Arundel Dacre
introduced me to them.'

'Who are they?'

'I forget their names. Dacre, how do you call the heroes of the night?
Dacre never answers. Did you ever observe that? But, see! there they
come.'

The Duke turned, and observed Lord Darrell advancing with two gentlemen
with whom his Grace was well acquainted. These were Prince Charles de
Whiskerburg and Count Frill.

M. de Whiskerburg was the eldest son of a prince, who, besides being
the premier noble of the empire, possessed, in his own country, a very
pretty park of two or three hundred miles in circumference, in the
boundaries of which the imperial mandate was not current, but hid its
diminished head before the supremacy of a subject worshipped under the
title of John the Twenty-fourth. M. de Whiskerburg was a young man,
tall, with a fine figure, and fine features. In short, a sort of
Hungarian Apollo; only his beard, his mustachios, his whiskers,
his _favoris_, his _padishas_, his sultanas, his mignonettas, his
dulcibellas, did not certainly entitle him to the epithet of _imberbis_,
and made him rather an apter representative of the Hungarian Hercules.

Count Frill was a different sort of personage. He was all rings and
ringlets, ruffles, and a little rouge. Much older than his companion,
short in stature, plump in figure, but with a most defined waist, fair,
blooming, with a multiplicity of long light curls, and a perpetual smile
playing upon his round countenance, he looked like the Cupid of an opera
Olympus.

The Duke of St. James had been intimate with these distinguished
gentlemen in their own country, and had received from them many and
distinguished attentions. Often had he expressed to them his sincere
desire to greet them in his native land. Their mutual anxiety of never
again meeting was now removed. If his heart, instead of being bruised,
had been absolutely broken, still honour, conscience, the glory of his
house, his individual reputation, alike urged him not to be cold or
backward at such a moment. He advanced, therefore, with a due mixture
of grace and warmth, and congratulated them on their arrival. At this
moment, Lady Fitz-pompey's carriage was announced. Promising to return
to them in an instant, he hastened to his cousin; but Mr. Arundel Dacre
had already offered his arm, which