s if Miss Kennedy had been chosen by everybody, every
time! She sat still enough now.

'Look up, child!' cried Miss Fisher. 'How do you expect to
know who's behind you, if you sit studying your pretty feet
upon the floor? You may flirt away an angel, and welcome some
gentleman in black who was not invited.'

There was a laugh at this sally; and as several gentlemen
sprang eagerly forward, Kitty began to hum--' "This is the
maiden all forlorn," '--but for once Hazel did not listen.

'Flirt somebody away!' she was thinking,--'I should like to see
myself doing it! I shall take the very first that comes.'

But alas for good intentions in a bad place! The room was
long, and some people were further off, and others close at
hand, and the very first that looked over her chair was Mr.
Morton! Hazel gave a toss of her handkerchief that half blew
him away. And the next--yes, the very next, was the man whom
she had been eluding all the evening. This time the hand moved
more languidly, and her eyes never looked up, and her cheeks
rivalled the scarlet flowers.

'She'll learn,--O, she'll learn!' cried Kitty Fisher. 'Never
saw it better done in my life. Such a discriminating touch!'

'Is there anybody else to escape?' thought poor Hazel, her
breath coming quick. And then she was so delighted to see
Captain Lancaster's pleasant face, that she shewed it in her
own; and the gentleman took an amount of encouragement
therefrom which by no means belonged to him. He waited upon
Miss Kennedy for the rest of that evening with a devotion
which everybody saw except herself. No such trifles as a man's
devotion got even a passing notice from her. For the girl was
feeling desperate. How many times that night had she been
betrayed into what she disliked and despised and had said she
never would do? If Rollo had not been there, perhaps she would
have felt only shame,--as it was, for the time it made her
reckless. 'Le miroir' gave place to other figures, and still
Miss Kennedy shewed no second wish to retire and join the
lookers-on. But every time the demands of the dance made _her_
choose a partner--when it was her woman's right to be chosen!--
every time she was passed rapidly from hand to hand without
even the poor power of choice, Wych Hazel avenged it on
herself by the sharpest silent comments; while to her
partners, she was proud, and reserved, and brilliant, and
generally 'touch-me-not;' until they too were desperate--with
admiration