eatly
appreciated by the gallants. As for the dancing, in that crowded room
owing to the space monopolised by the prodigious hoops and the general
exhilaration, the stately minuet and sarabande were out of the question,
and the jig and country dance were much more in favour.

In a side room cards and dicing were going on and the gamblers were not
to be drawn from the tables while they had money in their pockets. Most
of them were women, and when the grey dawn came stealing between the
curtains of the long narrow windows, overpowering the candlelight and
turning it of a pale sickly yellow, the players were still seated, with
feverish hands, haggard faces and hawk-like eyes, pursuing their race
after excitement. A silence had come over the party. The play was high
and the gamesters too absorbed to note anything but the game. From the
ball-room came the sound of violin, flute and harpsichord, shrieks of
shrill laughter, oaths from drunken wranglers and the continual thump of
feet.

Then the servants brought in coffee, extinguished the candles and drew
back the curtains.

"Good lord, we're more like a party of painted corpses than creatures of
flesh and blood," cried a lady with excessively rouged cheeks, bright
bird-like eyes and a long, thin hooked nose. "I declare positively I'll
play no more. Besides the luck's all one way, but 'tis not my fault. I
don't want to win every time."

"How generous--how thoughtful of your ladyship," sarcastically remarked
a handsome woman on the other side of the table.

"What do you mean, madam?" fiercely inquired the first speaker who was
now standing.

"Oh, nothing madam," was the retort accompanied by a curtsey of mock
humility. "Everybody knows Lady Anastasia's pleasant way of drawing off
when she has won and the luck's beginning to turn against her."

"I despise your insinuations madam," loftily replied Lady Anastasia, her
face where it was not rouged turning the colour of putty. "So common a
creature as Mistress Salisbury--I prefer not to soil my lips by
addressing you as _Sally_ Salisbury--I think that is the name by which
you are best known among the Cheapside 'prentices and my lord's
lackeys--ought to feel vastly honoured by being permitted to sit at the
same table with a woman of my rank."

"Your _rank_? Indeed, you're quite right. It _is_ rank. Foh!"

The handsome face was expressive of contemptuous abhorrence and her
gesture emphasised the expression. Lady Anastasia w