midnight
, so threw herself into the pathos of it that there were few to hold out against her , and we felt that Elizabeth had been misled . So much for morality in those days ! And now for the elopement . The twenty-first of June was the day appointed by Captain Kirby to carry off Countess Fanny , and the time midnight : and ten minutes to the stroke of twelve , Countess Fanny , as if she scorned to conceal that she was in a conspiracy with her grey-haired lover , notwithstanding that she was watched and guarded , left the Marchioness of Arpington 's ball-room and was escorted downstairs by her brother Lord Levellier , sworn to baffle Kirby . Present with him in the street and witness to the shutting of the carriage-door on Countess Fanny , were brother officers of his , General Abrane , Colonel Jack Potts , and Sir Upton Tomber . The door fast shut , Countess Fanny kissed her hand to them and drew up the window , seeming merry , and as they had expected indignation and perhaps resistance , for she could be a spitfire in a temper and had no fear whatever of firearms , they were glad to have her safe on such good terms ; and so General Abrane jumped up on the box beside the coachman , Jack Potts jumped up between the footmen , and Sir Upton Tomber and the one-armed lord , as soon as the carriage was disengaged from the ruck two deep , walked on each side of it in the road all the way to Lord Cressett 's town house . No one thought of asking where that silly young man was -- probably under some table .