At three o'clock the coach came, and the Earl and George set forth with outriders to attend the Governor's levee. It was the first time George had ever seen the Earl in court dress. He wore a splendid suit of plum-colored satin, with ruby and diamond shoebuckles, with his diamond-hilted sword, and a powdered wig. George, too, was very elegantly dressed, and as they drove up to the palace, amid a crowd of coaches and chaises of all sorts, and dismounted, there were not two such distinguished-looking persons there. George felt decidedly flurried, although he had ample self-possession to disguise it.
They were met by the Governor's guard in the great entrance-hall, who passed them on to an anteroom, where half a dozen lackeys in gorgeous liveries bowed to the ground before them. A great pair of folding-doors led into the audience-chamber, and at a signal from within the doors were thrown wide, and they entered.
The room was large but low, and had on each side a row of mullioned windows. It was crowded with company, but a lane was at once made for the Earl and George, who advanced towards a dais covered with scarlet cloth at one end of the room, where Governor Dinwiddie stood, in a splendid court dress; for the Governors of Virginia assumed to be viceroys, and everything at the provincial court was copied, as far as possible, from the same thing at the Court of St. James. Ranged around the dais were the wife and daughters of the Governor with several ladies-in-waiting, also in court dresses with trains.
As the Earl and George made their reverences they attracted much attention; and when George stood back, silent and awaiting his turn while the Governor conversed with the Earl, there was a murmur of admiration for him. He was so manly, so graceful, his figure was set off with so incomparable an air of elegance, that other men appeared commonplace beside him. He seemed from his ease and grace to have spent his life at courts, while, in truth, he had never seen anything half so fine before.
The Governor, having finished his conversation with the Earl, motioned to George, who advanced as the Earl backed off, it being inadmissible to turn one's back on the Governor.
The first question asked by Governor Dinwiddie was,