CHAPTER LX.
BEING A CHAPTER OF HOOPS, FEATHERS, AND BRILLIANTS, AND BUCKS AND FIDDLERS.
It was a mighty grand affair, this ball of the Royal Irish Artillery.
General Chattesworth had arrived that morning, just in time to preside over the hospitalities--he could not contribute much to the dancing--and his advent, still a little lame, but looking, as his friends told him, ten years younger for his snug little fit of the gout at Buxton, reinstated Aunt Becky in her place of power, to the secret disappointment of Madame Strafford, who had set her heart on doing the honours, and rehearsed for weeks, over her toilet, and even in bed, her little speeches, airs, and graces.
Lord Castlemallard was there, of course--and the gay and splendid Lady Moira--whom I mention because General Chattesworth opened the ball in a minuet with her ladyship--hobbling with wonderful grace, and beaming with great ceremonious smiles through his honourable martyrdom.

But there were more than a score of peers there beside, with their peeresses in tall feathers, diamonds, and monstrous hoops.

And the lord lieutenant was very near coming--and a lord lieutenant in those days, with a parliament to open, and all the regalia of his office about him, was a far greater personage than, in our democratic age, the sovereign in person.
Captain Cluffe had gone down in a chair to Puddock's lodgings, to borrow a pair of magnificent knee-buckles.

Puddock had a second pair, and Cluffe's own had not, he thought, quite recovered their good looks since that confounded ducking on the night of the serenade.

The gallant captain, learning that Puddock and Devereux intended walking--it was only a step across to the barrack-yard--and finding that Puddock could not at the moment lay his hand upon the buckles, and not wishing to keep the chair longer--for he knew delay would inflame the fare, and did not like dispensing his shillings-- 'Hey! walk?
I like the fancy,' cried the gay captain, sending half-a-crown down stairs to his 'two-legged ponies,' as people pleasantly called them.