s one of those meetings
where all eat. When a few persons, easy and unconstrained, unencumbered
with cares, and of dispositions addicted to enjoyment, get together at
past midnight, it is extraordinary what an appetite they evince. Singers
also are proverbially prone to gourmandise; and though the Bird of
Paradise unfortunately possessed the smallest mouth in all Singingland,
it is astonishing how she pecked! But they talked as well as feasted,
and were really gay.

'Prince,' said the Duke, 'I hope Madame de Harestein approves of your
trip to England?'

The Prince only smiled, for he was of a silent disposition, and
therefore wonderfully well suited his travelling companion.

'Poor Madame de Harestein!' exclaimed Count Frill. 'What despair she was
in, when you left Vienna, my dear Duke. I did what I could to amuse her.
I used to take my guitar, and sing to her morning and night, but without
effect. She certainly would have died of a broken heart, if it had not
been for the dancing-dogs.'

'Did they bite her?' asked a lady who affected the wit of Lord Squib,
'and so inoculate her with gaiety.'

'Everybody was mad about the dancing-dogs. They came from Peru, and
danced the mazurka in green jackets with a _jabot_. Oh! what a _jabot!_'

'I dislike animals excessively,' remarked another lady, who was as
refined as Mr. Annesley, her model.

'Dislike the dancing-dogs!' said Count Frill. 'Ah! my good lady, you
would have been enchanted. Even the Kaiser fed them with pistachio nuts.
Oh! so pretty! Delicate leetle things, soft shining little legs, and
pretty little faces! so sensible, and with such _jabots!_'

'I assure you they were excessively amusing,' said the Prince, in a
soft, confidential undertone to his neighbour, Mrs. Montfort, who was as
dignified as she was beautiful, and who, admiring his silence, which she
took for state, smiled and bowed with fascinating condescension.

'And what else has happened very remarkable, Count, since I left you?'
asked Lord Darrell.

'Nothing, nothing, my dear Darrell. This _betise_ of a war has made
us all serious. If old Clamstandt had not married that gipsy, little
Dugiria, I really think I should have taken a turn to Belgrade.'

'You should not eat so much, Poppet!' drawled Charles Annesley to
a Spanish danseuse, tall, dusky and lithe, glancing like a lynx and
graceful as a jennet. She was very silent, but no doubt indicated
the possession of Cervantic humour by the sly c