The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 285: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

252 THE COURT OF LONDON and entertaining, but that she also knew how to fling most mischievous sidelong glances from beneath the jetty fringes of her eyelids. Lord Sackville was of course present, and he was seated next to Lady Curzon, to whom he comported himself with a courtesy wherein there was an infusion of tenderness which the lady herself failed not to perceive, but which was not very generally observed around the table. The Marquis of Leveson was not amongst the guests. Venetia, who had superintended the invitations, had purposely omitted him, and the prince was too much absorbed in the gaiety of the scene and the pleasures of the table to remark his absence. Besides, there was no lack of dukes, marquises, earls, and barons, and thus the brilliant company comprised about fifty guests, all bent upon enjoying themselves during the evening to any extent that the general feeling might conventionally carry them. At eight o’clock the ladies withdrew to take coffee in the drawing-room, and soon afterward those who were to appear in the dramatic representation retired to undergo the opera- tions of the toilet. At half-past eight the gentlemen quitted the dinner-table and joined those ladies who still remained in the drawing-room, but at nine o’clock there was a general summons to repair to the saloon fitted up as the theatre. All those personages, male and female, who had been for- tunate enough to procure admission tickets, were already assembled in the theatre, and when those ladies and gentle- men who had been the prince’s guests at dinner, but who were not to take part in the representations, made their appearance and took their seats in the boxes reserved for them, the entire portion allotted to the audience was filled with the most brilliant assemblage. Indeed, to gaze upon that scene where court dresses and scarlet uniforms mingled with the elegant apparel of the ladies, where ostrich plumes and bird of paradise feathers waved above many a high and polished brow, where coronals of artificial flowers, wreaths of pearls, and tiaras of diamonds shone upon glossy hair or gave effect to hyperion tresses, where bright eyes reflected the light that poured down from the crystal chandeliers, and the crimson hue of the draperies imparted a roseate tint to that flood of lustrein which naked shoulders, bare arms, and half-exposed bosoms seemed dazzling as alabaster, and Gomicbooks (E(@)