Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/69

Rh dancing, music, and admiration, to feel her heart beat high at the expectation of the event.

At last, the day itself came. Brandon dined alone with Mauleverer, having made the arrangement, that he, with the Earl, was to join his brother and niece at the ball. Mauleverer, who hated state, except on great occasions, when no man displayed it with a better grace, never suffered his servants to wait at dinner when he was alone, or with one of his peculiar friends. The attendants remained without, and were summoned at will by a bell laid beside the host.

The conversation was unrestrained.

"I am perfectly certain, Brandon," said Lord Mauleverer, "that if you were to live tolerably well, you would soon get the better of your nervous complaints. It is all poverty of blood, believe me.—Some more of the fins, eh?—No!—oh, hang your abstemiousness, it is dd unfriendly to eat so little!—Talking of fins and friends—Heaven defend me from ever again forming an intimacy with a pedantic epicure, especially if he puns!"