He was always giving balls, informal little affairs got up on the spur of the moment, but this was to be a splendid function, outdoing all the others which had been held in Brussels. There would be so many Royalties present that the Duchess of Richmond declared that there would be no room for a mere commoner. The Dutch King and Queen were coming; the Prince of Orange, and Prince Frederick; the Duke of Brunswick; the Prince of Nassau; Prince Bernhard of de-Weimar, who commanded the 2nd Dutch-Belgic Brigade under General Perponcher; and of course the Duc de Berri, with his entourage of exalted personages.There was much laughing rivalry between his Lordship and the Duchess of Richmond over this question of balls. The best hostess in Brussels was not to be outdone by his lordship, and whipped in before him with her gilt-edged invitations for the night of Jun 15th. His lordship acknowledged himself to have been outmanoeuvred, and was obliged to postpone his own ball until later in the month. "Honours are even however," said Georgiana. "For though Mama has the better date, the Duke has the King and Queen!"

"Pooh!" said her Grace. "They will make the part very stiff and stupid. It will be all pretension, Duke! I promise you, my ball will be the success of the season!

"No such thing! It will be forgotten in the success of mine."

"It will be too hot for dancing by that time. Have you thought of that?"

"We will take this young woman's ruling on the point. Is it ever too hot for dancing, Georgy.." demanded his lordship, pinching her chin.

"No, never!" responded Georgiana. "Mama, consider if you provoke the Duke, perhaps he won't come to our party, and then we shall be undone!"

"That would be too infamous!" said the Duchess. "I will not believe him capable of such dastardly behaviour."

"No, no, I shall be there!" promised his lordship.

It was hard to believe that in the midst of their light-hearted schemes, other and much grimmer plans were revolving in his lordship's head. Foreigners, coming to Brussels, found the Duke's Headquarters a perplexing place, and his staff incurably flippant. No one seemed to take the approaching war seriously,young officers lounged in and out, talking to one another in a careless drawl that had so much annoyed General Roder; Lord Fitzroy would pause in the writing of important letters to exchange a joke with some friend who apparently thought nothing of interrupting his work; in the adjutant-general's teeming office, assistants and deputy-assistants demanded the names of bootmakers, or discussed the chances of competitors in the horse race at Grammont. It had never seemed to poor General Roder that anyone did any work, for work was mentioned in the most offhand fashion; yet the work was done, and the lounging young officers who looked so sleepy, and dressed so carelessly, carried the duke's message's to the Army at a speed which made The Prussian general blink. They would drag themselves out of their chairs, groaning, twitting each other on the need for exertion, and stroll out with yawns, and lazy comands for their horses. You would see them mount their English hunters: "Well, if I don't come back you'll know I've lost myself - Where is the damned place?" they would say. But long before you would have believed it possible they could have reached their destination, let alone have returned from it, there they there again, with nothing but the dust on their boots to betray that they had ever left Brussels. General Roder, accustomed to officers bustling about their business, clicking their heels together smartly in salute, disscussing military matters with zest and enthusiasm, would never be able to understand these English, who, incomprehensibly, considered it bad ton to talk about anything but quite childish trivialities.

But General Roder had been relieved at last. thanking God to be going away from such Headquarters, and in his place a very different officer had come to Brussels. General Baron vor Muffling brought no prejudices with him, or, if he did, he concealed them. Gneisenau had warned him to be very much on his guard in the English camp.

but General Muffling had dealt with Gneisenau for many years, and knew him to be a prey to preconceived ideas. The General came to Brussels with an open mind, and immediately endeared himself to his hosts by confessing with a disarming smile that in his early studies of the English language he had never got beyond The Vicar of Wakefield and Thomson's Seasons. He made it his business to try to understand the English character, and to earn the Duke's confidence, and succeeded in both aims to admiration. The Duke found him to be a sensible man, given to speaking the plain truth; and the staff, accustomed to the glaring disapproval of General Roder, declared him to be a very good sort of a fellow, and made him welcome in their own easy unceremonious fashion.

He was soon on good terms with everyone. His manners were polished, his address a mixture of tact and dignity. He did not snort at graceless lieutenants. and he never committed the solecism of introducing grim topics of conversation at festive gatherings. He seemed, in fact, to enjoy life in Brussels, and to be amused by the Headquarters' jokes.

"I think you are something of a wizard, Baron," said Judith. "Your predecessor was never on such terms with us all, though he had been in Brussels for so long."

"That is true," he replied. "But General Roder's irritability carried him too far. It is unfair for anyone in the midst of a foreign nation to frame his expectations on the ideas he brings with him. He should instead study the habits and customs of his hosts."

"Do you find our customs very different from your own?"

"Oh yes, certainly! In your Army, for instance, I find some customs better than ours; others perhaps not so good. There is much to bewilder the poor foreigner, I assure you, madame. There are the Duke's aides-de-camp and galopins, for example. One is at first astonished to find that these gentlemen are of the best families, and count it an honour to serve the Duke in this manner. Then one is astonished to see them so nonchalant." A smile crept into his eyes; he said: "One finds it hard to believe them to be des hommes serieux! But I discover that these so languid young officers make it a point of honour to ride four of your English miles in eighteen minutes, whenever the Duke adds the word Quick to his despatch. So then I perceive that I have been misjudging them, and I must reassemble my ideas."

"How do you go on with the Duke?" asked Worth.

"Very well, I believe. He is agreeable, and in matters of service very short and decided."

"Excessively short, I understand!" said Judith, with a laugh.

"Perhaps, yes," he acknowledged. "He exercises far greater power in the Army he commands than Prince von Blucher does in ours. It is not the custom, I find, to criticise or control your commander-in-chief. With us it is different. On our staff everything is discussed openly in the hearing of all the officers, which is, I find, not good, for time is wasted, and there are always what the Marshal calls Trubsals-Spritzen - I think you say - trouble-squirts?"

"No, you won't find the Duke discussing his plans with his officers," said Worth. "He is not held to held to be over-and-above fond of being asked questions, either."

The Baron replied in a thoughtful tone: "He allows questions. It would be more correct to say that he dismisses all such as are unnecessary. There is certainly an impatience to be observed sometimes, but his character is distinguished by its openness and rectitude and must make him universally respected. There should be the utmost harmony between him and the Marshal and the exertions of myself and of your estimable Colonel Hardinge must be alike directed towards this end."

"Yes, indeed," said Judith faintly. "I am sure - And how do you like being in Brussels, Baron? I hope you do not agree with General von Roder in thinking us very frivolous!"

"Madame, it is not possible!" he said, with a gallant bow. "Everyone is most amiable! One envies the English officers the beautiful wives who follow them so intrepidly to the seat of war."

She could not help laughing. "Oh! Are you married, Baron?"

"Yes," he replied. "I am the possessor of a noble-minded wife and three hopeful children."

"How - how delightful!" said Judith, avoiding her husband's eye.

But in spite of the occasionally paralysing remarks he made, Baron Muffling was a man of considerable shrewdness, and he soon learned not only to adapt himself to his company but to induce the Duke to trust him. He was perfectly frank with his lordship. "Prince Blucher will never make difficulties when the talk is of advancing and attacking. In retrograde movements his vexation sometimes overpowers him, but he soon recovers himself," he told the Duke. "General Gneisenau is chivalrous and strictly just, but he believes that you should always require from men more than they can perform, which is a principle which I consider as dangerous as it is incorrect. As for our infantry, it does not possess the same bodily strength or powers of endurance as yours. The greater mass of our troops are young and inexperienced. We cannot reckon on them obstinately continuing a fight from morning till evening. They will not do it."

"Oh! I think very little of soldiers running away at times," said his lordship. "The steadiest troops will occasionally do so - but it is a serious matter if they do not come back."

"You may depend upon one thing," Muffling assured him. "When the Prince has agreed to any operation in common, he will keep his word."

Yes, the Duke could be more than ever sure that he and old Blucher would be able to do the business, in spite of his infamous Army, his inexperienced staff, and every obstacle put in his way by the people at home. His personal staff had been augmented by Lieutenant Colonel Canning, who had served him in the Peninsula, and had had the temerity to beg to be employed again as an aide-de-camp; and by Major the Honourable Henry Percy, whom he had enrolled as an extra. He had nothing to complain of in his own family at least, though he was inclined to think it a great pity that Audley should not have recovered from his affair with Barbara Childe. However, it did not seem to be interfering with his work, which was all that signified.