On hearing this, Arthur determined to defer his visit a few hours
longer. There was a great rush of vehicles that night on the South side
of Berkly Square. The heavy family carriage, with its sleek horses,
driven at a sober pace by old John, the dashing curricle and smart
barouche, with the elegant private cab with its busy little Tiger in top
boots, whose single arm stops the thorough bred animal when his master
drops the reins.
"Is them 'ere hangels," enquired the butcher boy of his crony, Tom
Drops, the pot boy at the Crown and Sceptre, just round the corner, as
the two young ladies, who had acted in the character of bridesmaids in
the morning, stepped from their carriage on to the Indian matting which
had been stretched across the pavement to the hall steps, all tarletan
and rose buds, and ascended the grand staircase leading to the ball
room.
"Well, if they ain't they ought to be," was the response of Tom Drops.
At this moment a very stout and elaborately turbaned Dowager passed
slowly from her brougham along the matting and entered the hall.
"Is she a hangel too, do you think? Don't look much like one now,"
enquired the young butcher.
"In course not," said Tom, "they loses all the hangel when they marries,
leastways so I have heard. But who it this swell? he is bang up to the
mark; he's a horse sojer I knows, and a ossifer," as the embroidered
sabretache of Captain Carlton met his view while ascending the hall
steps.
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