ey rambled over every part of the house, amused
themselves with a visit to the gallery, and then collected behind the
scenes. They were excessively amused with the properties; and Lord Squib
proposed they should dress themselves. In a few minutes they were all
in costume. A crowd of queens and chambermaids, Jews and chimney-sweeps,
lawyers and Charleys, Spanish Dons, and Irish officers, rushed upon
the stage. The little Spaniard was Almaviva, and fell into magnificent
attitudes, with her sword and plume. Lord Squib was the old woman of
Brentford, and very funny. Sir Lucius Grafton, Harlequin; and Darrell,
Grimaldi. The Prince, and the Count without knowing it, figured as
watchmen. Squib whispered Annesley, that Sir Lucius O'Trigger might
appear in character, but was prudent enough to suppress the joke.

The band was summoned, and they danced quadrilles with infinite spirit,
and finished the night, at the suggestion of Lord Squib, by breakfasting
on the stage. By the time this meal was despatched the purple light of
morn had broken into the building, and the ladies proposed an immediate
departure.

BOOK IV.

CHAPTER I.

_Pen Bronnock Palace_

THE arrival of the two distinguished foreigners reanimated the dying
season. All vied in testifying their consideration, and the Duke of St.
James exceeded all. He took them to see the alterations at Hauteville
House, which no one had yet witnessed; and he asked their opinion of his
furniture, which no one had yet decided on. Two fetes in the same week
established, as well as maintained, his character as the Archduke of
fashion. Remembering, however, the agreeable month which he had spent in
the kingdom of John the Twenty-fourth, he was reminded, with annoyance,
that his confusion at Hauteville prevented him from receiving his
friends _en grand seigneur_ in his hereditary castle. Metropolitan
magnificence, which, if the parvenu could not equal, he at least could
imitate, seemed a poor return for the feudal splendour and impartial
festivity of an Hungarian magnate. While he was brooding over these
reminiscences, it suddenly occurred to him that he had never made a
progress into his western territories. Pen Bronnock Palace was the boast
of Cornwall, though its lord had never paid it a visit. The Duke of St.
James sent for Sir Carte Blanche.

Besides entertaining the foreign nobles, the young Duke could no longer
keep off the constantly-recurring idea that somet