id Stuart.
'Calling for you, in fact.'

'Echo answering "Where?" and all that,' said Kitty.

'Not at all. Echo said you were coming.'

'No dancing to-night?--awfully slow, isn't it? Beg pardon,
Phinny; but you think just so yourself. Go off and start up
the band into a waltz, and we'll have it out before the old
lady gets the idea into her head. Come?'

Phinny started off on the instant with such energy and
goodwill to her errand, that in a few minutes the burst of a
waltz air in the immediate neighbourhood of the parties
requiring it, said that Miss Josephine had been successful.
And she said it herself.

'There!' she exclaimed; 'we've got it. Mamma'll never care, if
she hears, nor know, if she sees. Come! Here are enough of
us.'

One and another couple sailed off from the group. Stuart
offered his hand to Wych Hazel. 'You waltz?' he said.

She gave hers readily. The music had put her on tiptoe. And
presently the little green was full of flying footsteps and
fluttering draperies. As many as there was room for took the
ground; but there was good room, and the waltz was spirited.
Some stood and looked on; some beat time with their feet. In a
shadow of the corner where they had been talking, stood Prim
and Rollo; _not_ beating time. Prim put her hand on his arm, but
neither spoke a word.

'Shall we take a tangent,--and finish our stroll?' whispered
Stuart, when they had whirled round the circle several times.

'If you like,--one is ready for anything in such a night,' said
Hazel gleefully. She had gone round much like a thistledown,
with a child's face and movement of pleasure. So, suddenly and
silently, as they were passing one of the alleys that led out
from the little green, Stuart and his partner disappeared from
the eyes of the spectators. It was certainly a pleasant night
for a stroll. The light made such new combinations of old
things, took and gave such new views; the pleasure of looking
for them and finding them was ensnaring. Then the air was very
sweet and soft, and--so was Stuart's conversation.

Gliding on from one thing to another, even as their footsteps
went,--mingling fun and fancy and common-place and flattery in
a very agreeable sort of _pot-pourri_,--so they followed down one
alley of the shrubbery and up another; winding about and
about, but keeping at a distance from other people. Until,
much too soon for Stuart's intent, they were suddenly and
quietly joined at a fork of the paths b