partner to another, with whom we have
no concern, until at last a young lieutenant in the guards who
had just finished his second dance with her, led up a friend whom
he begged to introduce. "Miss Porter--Mr. St. Cloud;" and then
after the usual preliminaries, Mary left her mother's side again
and stood up by the side of her new partner.

"It is your first season I believe, Miss Porter?"

"Yes, my first in London."

"I thought so; and you have only just come to town?"

"We came back from Rome six weeks ago, and have been in town ever
since."

"But I am sure I have not seen you anywhere this season until
to-night. You have not been out much yet?"

"Yes, indeed. Papa and mamma are very good-natured, and go
whenever we are asked to a ball, as I am fond of dancing."

"How very odd! and yet I am quite sure I should have remembered
it if we had met before in town this year."

"Is it so very odd?" asked Mary, laughing; "London is a very
large place; it seems very natural that two people should be able
to live in it for a long time without meeting."

"Indeed, you are quite mistaken. You will find out very soon how
small London is--at least how small society is, and you will get
to know every face quite well--I mean the face of everyone in
society."

"You must have a wonderful memory!"

"Yes, I have a good memory for faces, and, by the way, I am sure
I have seen you before; but not in town, and I cannot remember
where. But it is not at all necessary to have a memory to know
everybody in society by sight; you meet every night almost; and
altogether there are only two or three hundred faces to remember.
And then there is something in the look of people, and the way
they come into a room or stand about, which tells you at once
whether they are amongst those whom you need trouble yourself
about."

"Well, I cannot understand it. I seem to be in a whirl of faces,
and can hardly ever remember any of them."

"You will soon get used to it. By the end of the season you will
see that I am right. And you ought to make a study of it, or you
will never feel at home in London."

"I must make good use of my time then. I suppose I ought to know
everybody here, for instance?"

"Almost everybody."

"And I really do not know the names of a dozen people."

"Will you let me give you a lesson?"

"Oh, yes; I shall be much obliged."

"Then let us stand here, and we will take them as they pass to
the supper-room."

So they