Ormond did very positively desire it, and the footman obeyed. While Ormond was waiting impatiently for the answer, his horse, as impatient as himself, would not stand still. A groom, who was sauntering about, saw the uneasiness of the horse, and observing that it was occasioned by a peacock, who, with spread tail, was strutting in the sunshine, he ran and chased the bird away. Ormond thanked the groom, and threw him a luck token; but not recollecting his face, asked how long he had been at Annaly. “I think you were not here when I was here last?” said Ormond.
“No, sir.” said the man, looking a little puzzled; “I never was here till the day before yesterday in my born days. We bees from England.”
“We!”
“That is, I and master—that is, master and I.” Ormond grew pale; but the groom saw nothing of it—his eyes had fixed upon Ormond’s horse.
“A very fine horse this of yours, sir, for sartain, if he could but stand, sir; he’s main restless at a door. My master’s horse is just his match for that.”
“And pray who is your master, sir?” said Ormond, in a voice which he forced to be calm.
“My master, sir, is one Colonel Albemarle, son of the famous General Albemarle, as lost his arm, sir, you might have heard talk of, time back,” said the groom.
At this moment a window-blind was flapped aside, and before the wind blew it back to its place again, Ormond saw Florence Annaly sitting on a sofa, and a gentleman, in regimentals, kneeling at her feet.
“Bless my eyes!” cried the groom, “what made you let go his bridle, sir? Only you sat him well, sir, he would ha’ thrown you that minute—Curse the blind! that flapped in his eyes.”
The footman re-appeared on the steps. “Sir, it is just as I said—I could not be let in. Mrs. Spencer, my lady’s woman, says the ladies is engaged—you can’t see them.”