him. There was an animation in her eyes, a rose of
pleasure on her cheek which stirred in Kitty a queer, sudden sympathy.
"I <i>am</i> a little beast!" she said to herself. "Why shouldn't she be
happy?"

Then, perceiving Lady Tranmore at the end of the ballroom, she made her
way thither surrounded by a motley crowd of friends. She walked as
though on air, "raining influence." And as Lady Tranmore caught the
glitter of the diamond crescent, and beheld the small divinity beneath
it, she, too, smiled with pleasure, like the other spectators on Kitty's
march. The dress was monstrously costly. She knew that. But she forgot
the inroad on William's pocket, and remembered only to be proud of
William's wife. Since the Parhams' party, indeed, the unlooked-for
submission of Kitty, and the clearing of William's prospects, Lady
Tranmore had been sweetness itself to her daughter-in-law.

But her fine face and brow were none the less inclined to frown. She
herself as Katharine of Aragon would have shed a dignity on any scene,
but she was in no sympathy with what she beheld.

"We shall soon all of us be ashamed of this kind of thing," she declared
to Kitty. "Just as people now are beginning to be ashamed of enormous
houses and troops of servants."

"No, please! Only bored with them!" said Kitty. "There are so many other
ways now of amusing yourself--that's all."

"Well, this way will die out," said Lady Tranmore. "The cost of it is
too scandalous--people's consciences prick them."

Kitty vowed she did not believe there was a conscience in the room; and
then, as the music struck up, she carried off her companion to some
steps overlooking the great marble gallery, where they had a better view
of the two lines of dancers.

It is said that as a nation the English have no gift for pageants. Yet
every now and then--as no doubt in the Elizabethan mask--they show a
strange felicity in the art. Certainly the dance that followed would
have been difficult to surpass even in the ripe days and motherlands of
pageantry. To the left, a long line, consisting mainly of young girls in
their first bloom, dressed as Gainsborough and his great contemporaries
delighted to paint these flowers of England--the folds of plain white
muslin crossed over the young breast, a black velvet at the throat, a
rose in the hair, the simple skirt showing the small pointed feet, and
sometimes a broad sash defining the slender waist. Here were Stanleys,
Howards, Per