Here the talk began to spring up again in different places, and the conversation speedily turned into what we have heard it before, and the roar and confusion became universal, and swallowed up what remained of poor George Anne’s persecutions.

CHAPTER XXIV.

IN WHICH TWO YOUNG PERSONS UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER BETTER, PERHAPS, THAN EVER THEY DID BEFORE, WITHOUT SAYING SO.

And now the ladies, with their gay plumage, have flown away like foreign birds of passage, and the jolly old priests of Bacchus, in the parlour, make their libations of claret; and the young fellows, after a while, seeing a gathering of painted fans, and rustling hoops, and fluttering laces, upon the lawn, and a large immigration of hilarious neighbours besides, and two serious fiddlers, and a black fellow with a tambourine preparing for action, and the warm glitter of the western sun among the green foliage about the window, could stand it no longer, but stole away, notwithstanding a hospitable remonstrance and a protest from old Strafford, to join the merry muster.

‘The young bucks will leave their claret,’ said Lord Castlemallard; ’and truly ’tis a rare fine wine, colonel, a mighty choice claret truly (and the colonel bowed low, and smiled a rugged purple smile in spite of himself, for his claret was choice), all won’t do when Venus beckons—­when she beckons—­ha, ha—­all won’t do, Sir—­at the first flutter of a petticoat, and the invitation of a pair of fine eyes—­fine eyes, colonel—­by Jupiter, they’re off—­you can’t keep ’em—­I say your wine won’t keep ’em—­they’ll be off, Sir—­peeping under the hoods, the dogs will—­and whispering their wicked nonsense, Dr. Walsingham—­ha, ha—­and your wine, I say—­your claret, colonel, won’t hold ’em—­’twas once so with us—­eh, general?—­ha! ha! and we must forgive ’em now.’

And he shoved round his chair lazily, with a left-backward wheel, so as to command the window, for he liked to see the girls dance, the little rogues!—­with his claret and his French rappee at his elbow; and he did not hear General Chattesworth, who was talking of the new comedy called the ‘Clandestine Marriage,’ and how ’the prologue touches genteelly on the loss of three late geniuses—­Hogarth, Quin, and Cibber—­and the epilogue is the picture of a polite company;’ for the tambourine and the fiddles were going merrily, and the lasses and lads in motion.

Aunt Becky and Lilias were chatting just under those pollard osiers by the river.  She was always gentle with Lily, and somehow unlike the pugnacious Aunt Becky, whose attack was so spirited and whose thrust so fierce; and when Lily told a diverting little story—­and she was often very diverting—­Aunt Becky used to watch her pleasant face, with such a droll, good-natured smile; and she used to pat her on the cheek, and look so glad to see her when they met, and often as if she would say—­’ I admire you a great deal more, and I am a great deal