culars now to face the Queen's Council with, I
should say, Sir Henry?

HALFORD

Yes.--I want to get back to town as soon as possible to-day. Mrs
Siddons has a party at her house at Westbourne to-night, and all the
world is going to be there.

BAILLIE

Well, I am not. But I have promised to take some friends to Vauxhall,
as it is a grand gala and fireworks night. Miss Farren is going to
sing "The Canary Bird."--The Regent's fete, by the way, is postponed
till the nineteenth, on account of this relapse. Pretty grumpy he
was at having to do it. All the world will be THERE, sure!

WILLIS

And some from the Shades, too, of the fair, sex.--Well, here comes
Heberden. He has pacified his Majesty nicely. Now we can get away.

[The physicians withdraw softly, and the scene is covered.]

SCENE VI

LONDON. CARLTON HOUSE AND THE STREETS ADJOINING

[It is a cloudless midsummer evening, and as the west fades the
stars beam down upon the city, the evening-star hanging like a
jonquil blossom. They are dimmed by the unwonted radiance which
spreads around and above Carlton House. As viewed from aloft the
glare rises through the skylights, floods the forecourt towards
Pall Mall, and kindles with a diaphanous glow the huge tents in
the gardens that overlook the Mall. The hour has arrived of the
Prince Regent's festivity.

A stream of carriages and sedan-chairs, moving slowly, stretches
from the building along Pall Mall into Piccadilly and Bond Street,
and crowds fill the pavements watching the bejewelled and feathered
occupants. In addition to the grand entrance inside the Pall Mall
colonnade there is a covert little "chair-door" in Warwick Street
for sedans only, by which arrivals are perceived to be slipping in
almost unobserved.]

SPIRIT IRONIC

What domiciles are those, of singular expression,
Whence no guest comes to join the gemmed procession;
That, west of Hyde, this, in the Park-side Lane,
Each front beclouded like a mask of pain?

SPIRIT OF RUMOUR

Therein the princely host's two spouses dwell;
A wife in each. Let me inspect and tell.

[The walls of the two houses--one in Park Lane, the other at
Kensington--become transparent.]

I see within the first his latter wife--
That Caroline of Brunswick whose brave sire