The guests are seated; but after a few minutes the servants withdraw.  Small tables of ebony and silver, and dumb-waiters of ivory and gold, conveniently stored, are at hand, and Spiridion never leaves the room.  The repast was most refined, most exquisite, and most various.  It was one of those meetings where all eat.  When a few persons, easy and unconstrained, unincumbered with cares, and of dispositions addicted to enjoyment, get together at past midnight, it is extraordinary what an appetite they evince.  Singers also are proverbially prone to gormandize; and though the Bird of Paradise unfortunately possessed the smallest mouth in all Singingland, it is astonishing how she pecked!  But they talked as well as feasted, and were really gay.  It was amusing to observe—­that is to say, if you had been a dumb-waiter, and had time for observation—­how characteristic was the affectation of the women.  Lady Squib was witty, Mrs. Annesley refined, and the pseudo Lady Afy fashionable.  As for Mrs. Montfort, she was, as her wont, somewhat silent but excessively sublime.  The Spaniard said nothing, but no doubt indicated the possession of Cervantic humor by the sly calmness with which she exhausted her own waiter and pillaged her neighbors.  The little Frenchwoman scarcely ate anything, but drank champagne and chatted, with equal rapidity and equal composure.

“Prince,” said the duke, “I hope Madame de Harestein approves of your trip to England?”

The prince only smiled, for he was of a silent disposition, and therefore wonderfully well suited his traveling companion.

“Poor Madame de Harestein!” exclaimed Count Frill.  “What despair she was in when you left Vienna, my dear duke.  Ah! mon Dieu! I did what I could to amuse her.  I used to take my guitar, and sing to her morning and night, but without the least effect.  She certainly would have died of a broken heart, if it had not been for the dancing-dogs.”

“The dancing-dogs!” minced the pseudo Lady Aphrodite.  “How shocking!”

“Did they bite her?” asked Lady Squib, “and so inoculate her with gayety?”

“Oh! the dancing-dogs, my dear ladies! everybody was mad about the dancing-dogs.  They came from Peru, and danced the mazurka in green jackets with a jabot! Oh! what a jabot!”

“I dislike animals excessively,” remarked Mrs. Annesley.

“Dislike the dancing-dogs!” said Count Frill.  “Ah, my good lady, you would have been enchanted.  Even the kaiser fed them with pistachio nuts.  Oh, so pretty! delicate leetle things, soft shining little legs, and pretty little faces! so sensible, and with such jabots!”

“I assure you, they were excessively amusing,” said the prince, in a soft, confidential undertone to his neighbor, Mrs. Montfort, who, admiring his silence, which she took for state, smiled and bowed with fascinating condescension.

“And what else has happened very remarkable, count, since I left you?” asked Lord Darrell.