it still remained there, a small creep-hole being left for entrance
and exit.

Then the merry guests tumbled through doors at the further end, and
dancing began. The mingling of black-coated men and bright ladies gave a
charming appearance to the groups as seen by Faith and her brother, the
whole spectacle deriving an unexpected novelty from the accident of
reaching their eyes through interstices in the tracery of green leaves,
which added to the picture a softness that it would not otherwise have
possessed. On the other hand, the musicians, having a much weaker light,
could hardly be discerned by the performers in the dance.

The music was now rattling on, and the ladies in their foam-like dresses
were busily threading and spinning about the floor, when Faith, casually
looking up into her brother's face, was surprised to see that a change
had come over it. At the end of the quadrille he leant across to her
before she had time to speak, and said quietly, 'She's here!'

'Who?' said Faith, for she had not heard the words of the coachman.

'Ethelberta.'

'Which is she?' asked Faith, peeping through with the keenest interest.

'The one who has the skirts of her dress looped up with convolvulus
flowers--the one with her hair fastened in a sort of Venus knot behind;
she has just been dancing with that perfumed piece of a man they call Mr.
Ladywell--it is he with the high eyebrows arched like a girl's.' He
added, with a wrinkled smile, 'I cannot for my life see anybody answering
to the character of husband to her, for every man takes notice of her.'

They were interrupted by another dance being called for, and then, his
fingers tapping about upon the keys as mechanically as fowls pecking at
barleycorns, Christopher gave himself up with a curious and far from
unalloyed pleasure to the occupation of watching Ethelberta, now again
crossing the field of his vision like a returned comet whose
characteristics were becoming purely historical. She was a plump-armed
creature, with a white round neck as firm as a fort--altogether a
vigorous shape, as refreshing to the eye as the green leaves through
which he beheld her. She danced freely, and with a zest that was
apparently irrespective of partners. He had been waiting long to hear
her speak, and when at length her voice did reach his ears, it was the
revelation of a strange matter to find how great a thing that small event
had become to him. He knew the old utterance--ra