Sir Amyas went the round, giving and returning greetings, which were bestowed on him with an ardour sufficient to prove that he was a general favourite.  His mother, exquisitely dressed in a rich rose-coloured velvet train, over a creamy satin petticoat, both exquisitely embroidered, sailed up with a cordial greeting to her good cousin, and wanted to set him down to loo or ombre; but the veteran knew too well what the play in her house was, and saw, moreover, Lady Aresfield sitting like a harpy before the green baize field of her spoils.  While he was refusing, Sir Amyas returned to him, saying, “Sir, here is a gentleman whom I think you must have known in Flanders;” and the Major found himself shaking hands with an old comrade.  Save for his heavy heart, he would been extremely happy in the ensuing conversation.

In the meantime Lady Belamour, turning towards a stout, clumsy, short girl, her intensely red cheeks and huge black eyes staring out of her powder, while the extreme costliness of her crimson satin dress, and profusion of her rubies were ridiculous on the unformed person of a creature scarcely fifteen.  If she had been any one else she would have been a hideous spectacle in the eyes of the exquisitely tasteful Lady Belamour, who, detecting the expression in her son’s eye, whispered behind her fan, “We will soon set all that right;” then aloud, “My son cannot recover from his surprise.  He did not imagine that we could steal you for an evening from Queen’s Square to procure him this delight.”  Then as Sir Amyas bowed, “The Yellow Room is cleared for dancing.  Lady Belle will favour you, Amyas.”

“You must excuse me, madam,” he said; “I have not yet the free use of my arm, and could not acquit myself properly in a minuet.”

“I hate minuets,” returned Lady Belle; “the very notion gives me the spleen.”

“Ah, pretty heretic!” said my Lady, making a playful gesture with her fan at the peony-coloured cheek.  “I meant this wounded knight to have converted you, but he must amuse you otherwise.  What, my Lord I thought you knew I never meant to dance again.  Cannot you open the dance without me?  I, who have no spirits!”

The rest was lost as she sailed away on the arm of a gentleman in a turquoise-coloured coat, and waistcoat embroidered with gillyflowers; leaving the Lady Arabella on the hands of her son, who, neither as host nor gentleman, could escape, until the young lady had found some other companion.  He stiffly and wearily addressed to her the inquiry how she liked London.

“I should like it monstrously if I were not moped up in school,” she answered.  “So you have come back.  How did you hurt your arm?” she said, in the most provincial of dialects.

“In the fire, madam.”

“What?  In snatching your innamorata from the flames?”

“Not precisely,” he said.

“Come, now, tell me; did she set the room a-fire?” demanded the young lady.  “Oh, you need not think to deceive me.  My brother Mar’s coachman told my mamma’s woman all about it, and how she was locked up and ran away; but they have her fast enough now, after all her tricks!”