The ball had possession of the ground floor and first floor, and the house seemed to be endless.

'It's to cost sixty thousand pounds,' said the Marchioness of Auld Reekie to her old friend the Countess of Mid-Lothian.

The Marchioness had come in spite of her son's misfortune when she heard that the Duchess of Stevenage was to be there.

'And worse spent money never was wasted,' said the Countess.

'By all accounts it was as badly come by,' said the Marchioness.