spiteful protest that a young upstart from the colonies
should turn Lady Tankerville's drum into a levee. My ears tingled as I
listened. But not a feathered parrot in the carping lot of them could
deny that Miss Manners had beauty and wit enough to keep them all at
bay. Hers was not an English beauty: every line of her face and pose of
her body proclaimed her of that noble type of Maryland women, distinctly
American, over which many Englishmen before and since have lost their
heads and hearts.

"Egad!" exclaimed Mr. Storer, who was looking on; "she's already
defeated some of the Treasury Bench, and bless me if she isn't rating
North himself."

Half the heads in the room were turned toward Miss Manners, who was
exchanging jokes with the Prime Minister of Great Britain. I saw a
corpulent man, ludicrously like the King's pictures, with bulging gray
eyes that seemed to take in nothing. And this was North, upon whose
conduct with the King depended the fate of our America. Good-natured he
was, and his laziness was painfully apparent. He had the reputation of
going to sleep standing, like a horse.

"But the Beauty contrives to keep him awake," said Storer.

"If you stay among us, Mr. Carvel," said Topham, "she will get you a
commissionership for the asking."

"Look," cried Lady Di, "there comes Mr. Fox, the precocious, the
irresistible. Were he in the Bible, we should read of him passing the
time of day with King Solomon."

"Or instructing Daniel in the art of lion-taming," put in Mrs. Meynel.

There was Mr. Fox in truth, and the Beauty's face lighted up at sight of
him. And presently, when Lord North had made his bow and passed on,
he was seen to lead her out of the room, leaving her circle to go to
pieces, like an empire without a head.

CHAPTER XXXIII. DRURY LANE

After a night spent in making resolutions, I set out for Arlington
Street, my heart beating a march, as it had when I went thither on my
arrival in London. Such was my excitement that I was near to being run
over in Piccadilly like many another country gentleman, and roundly
cursed by a wagoner for my stupidity. I had a hollow bigness within
me, half of joy, half of pain, that sent me onward with ever increasing
steps and a whirling storm of contradictions in my head. Now it was:
Dolly loved me in spite of all the great men in England. Why, otherwise,
had she come to the sponging-house? Berating myself: had her affection
been other than that of a