ived with a welcome befitting his rank, and looked
round for Barbara. She was not dancing, and seemed to be
preoccupied--almost, indeed, as though she had been waiting for him.
Barbara at this time was a good and pretty girl, who never spoke ill of
any one, and hated other pretty women the very least possible. She did
not refuse him for the country-dance which followed, and soon after was
his partner in a second.

The evening wore on, and the horns and clarionets tootled merrily.
Barbara evinced towards her lover neither distinct preference nor
aversion; but old eyes would have seen that she pondered something.
However, after supper she pleaded a headache, and disappeared. To pass
the time of her absence, Lord Uplandtowers went into a little room
adjoining the long gallery, where some elderly ones were sitting by the
fire--for he had a phlegmatic dislike of dancing for its own sake,--and,
lifting the window-curtains, he looked out of the window into the park
and wood, dark now as a cavern. Some of the guests appeared to be
leaving even so soon as this, two lights showing themselves as turning
away from the door and sinking to nothing in the distance.

His hostess put her head into the room to look for partners for the
ladies, and Lord Uplandtowers came out. Lady Grebe informed him that
Barbara had not returned to the ball-room: she had gone to bed in sheer
necessity.

'She has been so excited over the ball all day,' her mother continued,
'that I feared she would be worn out early . . . But sure, Lord
Uplandtowers, you won't be leaving yet?'

He said that it was near twelve o'clock, and that some had already left.

'I protest nobody has gone yet,' said Lady Grebe.

To humour her he stayed till midnight, and then set out. He had made no
progress in his suit; but he had assured himself that Barbara gave no
other guest the preference, and nearly everybody in the neighbourhood was
there.

''Tis only a matter of time,' said the calm young philosopher.

The next morning he lay till near ten o'clock, and he had only just come
out upon the head of the staircase when he heard hoofs upon the gravel
without; in a few moments the door had been opened, and Sir John Grebe
met him in the hall, as he set foot on the lowest stair.

'My lord--where's Barbara--my daughter?'

Even the Earl of Uplandtowers could not repress amazement. 'What's the
matter, my dear Sir John,' says he.

The news was startling, indeed. From t