“Faith!” cries the Baronet, “I’ll not budge, my divine Peggy! until you are once more at my side!” and with a horrid leer through his peepholes, he essays to take Lady Biddy’s hand once more, but she’s off, balking him.
Quick as thought, she scampered across to the edge of the orchestra, where she discovered a group of masks and among ’em one, whom, by the rose pinned to her bloom-colored bodice, she knew to be Lady Diana, and she made certain that two of the three bloods near her, canes dangling at their button-holes, must be Sir Percy and Lord Kennaston.
“Hist!” exclaims Lady Biddy, panting partly from speed, partly from the fright a lady alone might experience in running the gauntlet of so many macaronis and fops, not to speak of thieves and pickpockets, as perforce was the case in progressing about Vauxhall.
“What is’t Biddy, for I know you by your silver heels,” answers Lady Di. “Mischief, I’ll dare be sworn, or it’s not you! Speak your mind; there’s none here but what can keep a secret, and the whole of us have been a-watching you with some one, fie! at the entrance to the Dark Alleys.”
“Is Sir Percy here? Is this he?” whispers Biddy.
Sir Percy bows, for he is there; while the other two gentlemen, inferring from her tone that she seeks a private ear, instantly withdraw to one of the boxes for a glass of Burgundy to refresh their spirits.
“I’ve news for you, of one you’re a-dyin’ for, of Lady Peggy Burgoyne!” exclaims she triumphantly.
“What! What!” comes simultaneously from behind each of the masks she addresses.
“Aye; I’m after learning from, whom, think you?”
“Proceed, for the love of God, Madam!” says Percy, very low.