, with any quantity of bows and
braids behind, and a wreath!--that required all Mrs. Castleton's
self-possession to look at without laughing. Her entrance excited no
little sensation--for she was a striking-looking girl, being tall, and
full formed, with a very brilliant complexion. Simply and quietly
dressed, and she would have been decidedly handsome; but as it was,
she was intensely _showy_ and vulgar.

"Harry, the music is just beginning; you will find a place for Miss
Dawson in the dancing-room," and so, whether he would or no, he had to
ask her to dance. Probably he would have done so if his sister had let
him alone; but as it was, he felt as if he _had_ to.

She danced very badly. Harry had not been aware of it before; but she
jumped up and down--and if the truth must be told, with an air and
spirit of enjoyment not just then the fashionable style.

"How in earnest your fair friend dances," said a young man, with a
smile, to Harry, as they passed in the dance.

Harry colored.

"Who on earth have you there, Harry?" asked another, with rather a
quizzical look. "Introduce me, wont you?" But Harry affected not to
hear the request.

"Who is the young lady your brother is dancing with, Mrs. Castleton?"
he heard asked several times; to which his sister answered in her
sweetest and most winning manner, "Miss Dawson--a friend of Harry's;"
and to some of her brother's particular friends, he heard her say,
"Oh, that's Harry's _belle_. Don't you know Miss Dawson--let me
introduce you."

Harry felt quite provoked, he did not know why, at hearing his sister
couple _him_ always with Miss Dawson; and if he thought the room hot
at the beginning of the dance, he did not feel it any cooler before it
was over.

Mrs. Castleton introduced a gentleman just as the dance finished, who
asked her for the next, when Harry said quickly,

"You are fatigued, are you not? Perhaps you had better go with me and
get an ice."

"Do you go and bring Miss Dawson one," said his sister. "I hope," she
continued, "you are not fatigued already?"

"Oh, no," replied the young lady, with an animation and energy that
proclaimed she had a dancing power within not to be readily exhausted.
"Oh, no, indeed; I could dance all night."

"I am glad to hear it," said Mrs. Castleton, graciously, as if she
felt her dancing a personal compliment. And before the dance was over
she had introduced half a dozen young men to her.

Feeling herself a decided be