the moment when, the cloth drawn and the ladies gone, a
gentlemanly carousal should be inaugurated.

The company drew their Russian leather chairs closer to the table,
spread over their silken knees the fringed damask napkins, and for a
space little was to be heard but the sound of knife and spoon (forks
there were none), for the morning ride had sharpened appetites. The
servants passed from chair to chair; the master, seconded by his
daughter and sister, pricked his guests on to fresh attacks, pressing a
third slice of mutton on one, a fresh helping of capon upon another,
protesting that a third ate as though it were a fast day, and that a
fourth drank as though the October were sea-water.

When the cloth was drawn and the banquet put on, tongues were loosened.
The Governor quoted passages from his "Lost Lady" to Patricia, lifting
her lovely flushed face from the carving of a tart with wonderfully
constructed towering walls. Behind a second turreted marvel of pastry,
Mistress Lettice and Mr. Frederick Jones sighed and ogled with antique
grace. Sir Charles Carew, fingering his cherries, told a piquant little
court anecdote to Mistress Betty Carrington, and was lazily amused at
the blush and veiled eyelids with which the young lady received it.
Young Mr. Peyton, on her other side, looked very black.

The wine was put on and the toast to King and Church drunk standing,
after which the ladies dipped their white fingers into the basin of
perfumed water, dried them on the silver-fringed napkin, and sailed to
the door, through which, after the profoundest of courtesies on the one
side and the lowest of bows upon the other, they vanished, leaving the
gentlemen to wine and wassail.

Colonel Verney drank to the Governor; the Governor to Colonel Verney;
Sir Charles to the author of the "Lost Lady" and the "Discourse and View
of Virginia," so tickling the Governor's vanity thereby that he became
altogether charming. Mr. Peyton toasted Mistress Betty Carrington, and
Mr. Frederick Jones, Mistress Lettice Verney, "fairest and most discreet
of ladies." They drank to Captain Laramore's next voyage, to Mr.
Wormeley's success in vine planting, to Major Carrington's conversion.
They drank confusion to Quakers, Independents, Baptists and infidels, to
the heathen on the frontier and the Papists in Maryland, the Dutch on
the Hudson and the French on the St. Lawrence,--"Quebec in exchange for
Dunkirk!" In short, there were few things in he