Page:Headlong Hall - Peacock (1816).djvu/171

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HEADLONG HALL.
163

father, had engaged them many days before. Mr. Panoscope chafed and fretted like Conwy in his bed of rocks, when the object of his adoration stood up with his rival: but he consoled himself with a lively damsel from the vale of Llwyd, having first compelled Miss Cephalis to promise him her hand for the fourth set.

The ball was accordingly opened by Miss Caprioletta and Mr. Foster, which gave rise to much speculation among the Welch gentry, as to who this Mr. Foster could be; some of the more learned among them secretly resolving to investigate most profoundly the antiquity of the name of Foster, and ascertain what right a person so denominated could have to open the most illustrious of all possible balls with the lovely Caprioletta Headlong, the only sister of Harry Headlong, Esquire, of Headlong Hall, in the Vale of Llanberris,