e added; "he was very much
the nicest looking. I must get my husband to call to-morrow, and then we
shall know more about them."

Mary did not say much on the subject. Love at first sight may be fairly
owned as a possibility, but it would be ridiculous to say that Mary
Wynter had proved its reality. The thin end of the wedge, perhaps, had
wounded her, and a succession of blows would easily drive it deep into
her heart, or her fancy, as the case might be. Perhaps, too, it was more
tempting to think of a stranger so attractive without being able to give
him a name, than it would have been if he had to be recognized as Mr.
Thomas Brown or Mr. John Robinson.

However that might be, she did not find her enjoyment of the day at all
interfered with by the morning's incident. She and Helen paid some
visits, then dined out, and finally arrived rather late at a house where
there was a great evening gathering. This house was one at which she had
not before been a guest, and she was full of lively curiosity about the
people she was to meet there. The hostess was fond of collecting
together all sorts of stray oddities, and of trying to further a scheme
of universal brotherhood by mixing up in her drawing-room a most motley
crowd, including all classes, from the ultra fine lady to the
emancipated slave. It was not, perhaps, very amusing to the portion of
her guests who found themselves lost in a sea of unknown faces, through
which no pilot guided them; yet people went to her, partly because she
was _grande dame_, and partly as to a lion show. Mrs. Churchill thought
her country girl would be amused by one visit to this lady, and Mary was
delighted at the prospect of seeing the possessors of various well-known
names.

The rooms were very full when they arrived; and when, after considerable
exercise of patience and perseverance, they had struggled in and got to
a corner where they could breathe, and speak to each other, Helen said,

"Well, my dear, I hope you will find the sight worth the scramble--it is
fuller than usual to-night, I think; and if I followed my own
inclinations, I should try to slip round to a little room I know, where
there are seldom many people, and rest there. But that would not be fair
to you."

"Indeed it would," Mary answered. "Do let us go; we can perhaps move
about a little, later, and I positively cannot breathe here now."

They worked their way accordingly to the little boudoir Helen spoke of.
Their pr