With some interest I surveyed this old personage in paint, patches, and brocade; she who had wrought poor Charters such mischief in his youth when he was about eighteen, and she perhaps six and thirty.
But now the dusk was setting in; I missed his grace of Argyle, or perhaps he thought his duty to me ended at the foot of the throne, and it was an odd coincidence that Aurora also lost her chaperone, Lady Ancrum; thus I had to escort her to the Palace-gate.
"You must come to Netherwood for the shooting, Basil," said she, as we traversed the long corridors of the palace; "at the Hall I keep a strange souvenir of you," she continued, laughing—"an old blunderbuss—do you remember it?"
"No."
"You cannot have forgotten that night on Wandsworth Common, and the old blunderbuss which so terrified John Trot?"
"How could I forget the first time I met you, Aurora!—but here is your chair."
Two yeomen of the guard made way for us with their partisans; John Trot was in attendance with cane and link, as I handed Aurora into her sedan, hooped-petticoat, skirt, toupée and all.
"While in London, Basil, remember that you make our house in Piccadilly your home."
"Our!" thought I in perplexity, as two soft hands held mine during this speech, and two blue eyes looked kindly into mine. I was becoming a timid fellow again, or I know not what privilege of cousinship I might have claimed had we been elsewhere than amid that crowd at Kensington Palace-gate.
"I live in Piccadilly with an old lady-friend, or rather, I should say she lives with me—my companion, an officer's widow. You will lunch with us to-morrow—two is the hour, and we shall expect you. Adieu."