was but newly come to London, offered to show him the various
places where men of fashion resorted, and begged him to consider
them at his disposal. Rupert, who had been carefully instructed by
his grandfather in courtly expression and manner, returned many
thanks to the gentlemen for their obliging offers, of which, after
he had again spoken to the earl, and knew what commands he would
lay upon him, he would thankfully avail himself.

It was nearly an hour before the Earl of Marlborough had made the
round of the antechamber, but the time passed quickly to Rupert.
The room was full of men whose names were prominent in the history
of the time, and these Sir John Loveday, and Lord Fairholm, who
were lively young men, twenty-two or twenty-three years old,
pointed out to him, often telling him a merry story or some droll
jest regarding them. There was Saint John, handsome, but delicate
looking, with a half sneer on his face, and dressed in the
extremity of fashion, with a coat of peach-coloured velvet with
immense cuffs, crimson leather shoes with diamond buckles; his
sword was also diamond hilted, his hands were almost hidden in lace
ruffles, and he wore his hair in ringlets of some twenty inches in
length, tied behind with a red ribbon. The tall man, with a haughty
but irritable face, in the scarlet uniform of a general officer,
was the Earl of Peterborough. There too were Godolphin and Orford,
both leading members of the cabinet; the Earl of Sutherland, the
Dukes of Devonshire and Newcastle, Lord Nottingham, and many
others.

At last the audience was over, and the minister, bowing to all,
withdrew, and the visitors began to leave. A lackey came up to
Rupert and requested him to follow him; and bidding adieu to his
new friends, who both gave him their addresses and begged him to
call up on them, he followed the servant into the hall and upstairs
into a cosy room, such as would now be called a boudoir. There
stood the Earl of Marlborough, by the chair in which a lady of
great beauty and commanding air was sitting.

"Sarah," he said, "this is my young friend, Rupert Holliday, who as
you know did me good service in the midlands."

The countess held out her hand kindly to Rupert, and he bent over
it and touched it with his lips.

"You must remember you are my friend as well as my husband's," she
said. "He tells me you saved his life; and although I can scarce
credit the tale, seeing how young you are, yet courage and s