intention
that is the greatest compliment, so I will not mind too much.
I think I will be very happy even if I do not dance at all."

She looked up at him for the first time, and even in the dusk
he seemed to see the light in her eyes, the smile on her lips,
the colour flushing in her cheeks. It was not of the ball she
was thinking--it was of him; she had felt the grasp of his kind
hand, his voice was sounding in her hears, he has come back at
last--at last.

"You have been away a long time, Monsieur Horace," she said
softly, "but we have heard of you often; we have read your
book, and the critiques upon it; it has been a great success,
has it not? And then we have seen your name in the papers--at
dinners, at scientific meetings----"

"Yes," said Graham, "I have been doing plenty of hard work
lately; but I have come down into the country to be idle, and
have some fun, as Madge would say. We will take our holidays
together, will we not, Madge?" he added, as the child,
followed by her mother, came into the room.

Lady Lorrimer's ball was the culminating point of a series of
festivities given in honour of the coming of age of an eldest
son. To ordinary eyes, I suppose, it was very like any other
ball, to insure whose success no accessory is wanting that
wealth and good taste can supply; but to our Madelon there was
something almost bewildering in this scene at once familiar
and so strange; in these big, lighted, crowded rooms; in this
music, whose every beat seemed to rouse a thousand memories
and associations, liking the present with the so remote past.
As for Madelon herself, she made a success, ideal almost, as
if she had indeed been the enchanted Princess of little
Madge's fairy tale. Something rare in the style of her beauty--
something in her foreign air and appearance, distinguished her
at once in the crowd of girls; she was sought after from the
moment she entered the room, and the biggest personages
present begged for an introduction to Miss Linders. The girl
was not insensible to her triumphs; her cheeks flushed, her
eyes brightened with excitement and pleasure. Once, in a pause
of the waltz, she was standing with her partner close to where
Graham was leaning against a wall. He had an air of being
horribly bored, as indeed he was; but Madelon's eye caught
his, and he was obliged to smile in answer to her look of
radiant pleasure.

"You are enjoying yourself, I see, Madelon," he said.

"I never was so