f the band playing in
the courtyard below, looking at the royal portraits, and chatting with
groups of friends who appeared and reappeared in the throng. Finally
Lady Baird sent for us to join her in a knot of personages more or less
distinguished, who had dined at the palace, and who were standing behind
the receiving party in a sort of sacred group. This indeed was a ground
of vantage, and one could have stood there for hours, watching all sorts
and conditions of men and women bowing before the Lord High Commissioner
and the Marchioness, who, with her Cleopatra-like beauty and scarlet
gown, looked like a gorgeous cardinal-flower.

Salemina and I watched the curtsying narrowly, with the view at first of
improving our own obeisances for Buckingham Palace; but truth to say
we got no added light, and plainly most of the people had not worn
threadbare the carpets in front of their dressing-mirrors.

Suddenly we heard a familiar name announced, 'Lord Colquhoun,' a
distinguished judge who had lately been raised to the peerage, and whom
we often met at dinners; then 'Miss Rowena Colquhoun'; and then in
the midst, we fancied, of an unusual stir at the entrance door--'Miss
Francesca Van Buren Monroe.' I involuntarily touched the Reverend
Ronald's shoulder in my astonishment, while Salemina lifted her
tortoise-shell lorgnette, and we gazed silently at our recreant charge.

After presentation, each person has fifteen or twenty feet of awful
space to traverse in solitary and defenceless majesty; scanned meanwhile
by the maids of honour (who if they were truly honourable, would turn
their eyes another way), ladies-in-waiting, the sacred group in the
rear, and the Purse-Bearer himself. I had supposed that this functionary
would keep the purse in his upper bureau drawer at home, when he was not
paying bills, but it seems that when on processional duty he carries
a bag of red velvet quite a yard long over his arm, where it looks not
unlike a lady's opera-cloak. It would hold the sum-total of all moneys
disbursed, even if they were reduced to the standard of vulgar copper.

Under this appalling fire of inspection, some of the victims waddle,
some hurry; some look up and down nervously, others glance over the
shoulder as if dreading to be apprehended; some turn red, others pale,
according to complexion and temperament; some swing their arms, other
trip on their gowns; some twitch the buttons of a glove, or tweak a
flower or a jewel.