“Who is at the castle?” I asked, as the boy busied himself in unstrapping my portmanteau.
“Oh, a great many, sir.” He stopped in his occupation, and began counting on his fingers. “There’s Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Claud Hamilton and Lady Harriette Hamilton (them’s his lordship’s two step children, you know, sir,) and the Dutchess of Richmond and Lady Sophia Lennox, and Lady Keith, and Lord Mandeville and Lord Aboyne, and Lord Stormont and Lady Stormont, and Lord Morton and Lady Morton, and Lady Alicia, and—and—and—twenty more, sir.”
“Twenty more lords and ladies?”
“No, sir! that’s all the nobility.”
“And you can’t remember the names of the others?”
“No, sir.”
He was a proper page. He could not trouble his memory with the names of commoners.
“And how many sit down to dinner?”
“Above thirty, besides the Duke and Dutchess.”
“That will do.” And off tripped my slender gentleman with his laced jacket, giving the fire a terrible stir-up in his way out, and turning back to inform me that the dinner hour was seven precisely.