Captain and Mrs. Steele, who were the first to arrive, had driven to Kensington from their country-house, the Hovel at Hampton Wick.  “Not from our mansion in Bloomsbury Square,” as Mrs. Steele took care to inform the ladies.  Indeed Harry had ridden away from Hampton that very morning, leaving the couple by the ears; for from the chamber where he lay, in a bed that was none of the cleanest, and kept awake by the company which he had in his own bed, and the quarrel which was going on in the next room, he could hear both night and morning the curtain lecture which Mrs. Steele was in the habit of administering to poor Dick.

At night it did not matter so much for the culprit; Dick was fuddled, and when in that way no scolding could interrupt his benevolence.  Mr. Esmond could hear him coaxing and speaking in that maudlin manner, which punch and claret produce, to his beloved Prue, and beseeching her to remember that there was a distiwisht officer ithe rex roob, who would overhear her.  She went on, nevertheless, calling him a drunken wretch, and was only interrupted in her harangues by the Captain’s snoring.

In the morning, the unhappy victim awoke to a headache, and consciousness, and the dialogue of the night was resumed.  “Why do you bring captains home to dinner when there’s not a guinea in the house?  How am I to give dinners when you leave me without a shilling?  How am I to go traipsing to Kensington in my yellow satin sack before all the fine company?  I’ve nothing fit to put on; I never have:”  and so the dispute went on—­Mr. Esmond interrupting the talk when it seemed to be growing too intimate by blowing his nose as loudly as ever he could, at the sound of which trumpet there came a lull.  But Dick was charming, though his wife was odious, and ’twas to give Mr. Steele pleasure, that the ladies of Castlewood, who were ladies of no small fashion, invited Mrs. Steele.

Besides the Captain and his lady, there was a great and notable assemblage of company:  my Lady of Chelsey having sent her lackeys and liveries to aid the modest attendance at Kensington.  There was Lieutenant-General Webb, Harry’s kind patron, of whom the Dowager took possession, and who resplended in velvet and gold lace; there was Harry’s new acquaintance, the Right Honorable Henry St. John, Esquire, the General’s kinsman, who was charmed with the Lady Castlewood, even more than with her daughter; there was one of the greatest noblemen in the kingdom, the Scots Duke of Hamilton, just created Duke of Brandon in England; and two other noble lords of the Tory party, my Lord Ashburnham, and another I have forgot; and for ladies, her Grace the Duchess of Ormonde and her daughters, the Lady Mary and the Lady Betty, the former one of Mistress Beatrix’s colleagues in waiting on the Queen.

“What a party of Tories!” whispered Captain Steele to Esmond, as we were assembled in the parlor before dinner.  Indeed, all the company present, save Steele, were of that faction.