THE HAUGHTYSHIRE HUNT. 121 



and his party. Lord Gravity had been all for delaying the 

 dinner at the Castle so that it would have been impossible to 

 get to the Ball until several of the items on the card had been 

 disposed of, but the Duke was inexorable. Even his son and 

 heir could not carry the opposition to more than a certain 

 length, and this was soon reached. His Grace loved dancing 

 much ; he loved pretty women even more ; and he meant to 

 get as much fun out of the Ball as possible. He therefore 

 fixed the dinner-hour early, and so managed to arrive in time 

 to ' take the floor ' just as the music of Herr Splitzen 

 Lagerbier's band heralded the commencement of the second 

 dance on the programme. 



With the Duke came, of course. Lord Gravity. He arranged 

 his father's natty button-hole of Parma violets in his scarlet 

 dress-coat, and presented him with a pair of elegant lavender 

 'kids.' Gravity always deferred entrusting the Duke with 

 his gloves till the last moment, as His Grace had a fatal 

 weakness for mislaying all such ' unconsidered trifles ' as 

 these, just as he did handkerchiefs, cigarette cases, and return 

 halves of railway-tickets. Then, merely peeping into the 

 room in which the dancers were whirling round, a confused, 

 and to Gravity's eyes, blurred mass of chiffon and scarlet, 

 black and white tulle, he sighed gently for the time he would 

 have to waste — time which might have been so much better 

 employed in reading and gloating over the literary beauties of 

 Virgil or Horace — and then he meekly took a seat next to 

 Mrs. Joggletilt, who was chaperoning the four Miss Merry- 

 weathers. Mrs. Joggletilt was a lady sufficiently merciful to 

 her friends to confine herself, strictly, to square dances, now 

 that the inexorable scale warned her that, despite her constant 



