cheeks bright with their first
rouge, and her eyes unnaturally brilliant. _How_ she flirted with Horace
that night, when the theatricals were over! Young ladies who wanted to
hook the pet baronet, whispered over their bouquets, "How bold!" and
dowagers, seeing one of their best matrimonial speculations endangered
by the brilliant Canadian, murmured behind their fans to each other
their wonder that Mrs. Vivian should allow any one so fast and so
unblushing a coquette to associate with her young daughters.

Vivian watched her with intense earnestness. He had given her a bouquet
that day, and she had thanked him for it with her soft, fond eyes, and
told him she should use it. Now, as she came into the ball-room, he
looked at the one in her hand; it was not his, but his cousin's.

He set his teeth hard; and swore a bitter oath to himself. As _Huon_, he
was obliged to dance the first dance with the _Countess_, but he spoke
little to her, and indeed, Cecil did not give him much opportunity, for
she talked fast, and at random, on all sorts of indifferent subjects,
with more than even her usual vivacity, and quite unlike the ordinary
soft and winning way she had used of late when with him. He danced no
more with her, but, daring the waltzes with which he was obliged to
favor certain county beauties, and all the time he was doing the honors
of Deerhurst, with his calm, stately, Bayard-like courtesy, his eyes
would fasten on the St. Aubyn, driving the Dragoons to desperation,
waltzing while Horace whispered tender speeches in her ear, or sitting
jesting and laughing, half the men in the room gathered round her--with
a look of passion and hopelessness, tenderness and determination,
strangely combined.

IV.

THE COLONEL KILLS HIS FOX, BUT LOSES HIS HEAD AFTER OTHER GAME.

The next day was Christmas-eve; and on the 24th of December the hounds,
from time immemorial, had been taken out by a Vivian. For the last few
days the frost had been gradually breaking up, thank Heaven, and we
looked forward to a good day's sport The meet was at Deerhurst, and it
proved a strong muster for the Harkaway; though not exactly up to the
Northamptonshire Leicestershire mark, are a clever, steady pack. Cecil
and Blanche were the only two women with us, for the country is cramped
and covered with blind fences, and the fair sex seldom hunt with the
Harkaway. But the St. Aubyn is a first-rate seat, and Blanche has, she
tells me, ridden anythin