flushed with pleasure and confusion. The young gentlemen to whom
the earl had introduced him, much surprised at the flattering
manner in which the great general had spoken of the lad before
them, at once entered into conversation with him, and hearing that
he was but newly come to London, offered to show him the various
places where men of fashion resorted, and begged him to consider
them at his disposal. Rupert, who had been carefully instructed by
his grandfather in courtly expression and manner, returned many
thanks to the gentlemen for their obliging offers, of which, after
he had again spoken to the earl, and knew what commands he would
lay upon him, he would thankfully avail himself.

It was nearly an hour before the Earl of Marlborough had made the
round of the antechamber, but the time passed quickly to Rupert.
The room was full of men whose names were prominent in the history
of the time, and these Sir John Loveday, and Lord Fairholm, who
were lively young men, twenty-two or twenty-three years old,
pointed out to him, often telling him a merry story or some droll
jest regarding them. There was Saint John, handsome, but delicate
looking, with a half sneer on his face, and dressed in the
extremity of fashion, with a coat of peach-coloured velvet with
immense cuffs, crimson leather shoes with diamond buckles; his
sword was also diamond hilted, his hands were almost hidden in lace
ruffles, and he wore his hair in ringlets of some twenty inches in
length, tied behind with a red ribbon. The tall man, with a haughty
but irritable face, in the scarlet uniform of a general officer,
was the Earl of Peterborough. There too were Godolphin and Orford,
both leading members of the cabinet; the Earl of Sutherland, the
Dukes of Devonshire and Newcastle, Lord Nottingham, and many
others.