of simplicity. It is the very thing aimed
at by Rashe and Cilly, and all their crew, with their eccentricities.'

'I am sorry for it,' seriously returned Phoebe, who had by this time, by
quiet resistance, caused him to land her under the lee of Miss
Charlecote, instead of promenading with her about the room. He wanted
her to dance with him again, saying she owed it to him for having
sacrificed the first to common humanity, but great as was the pleasure of
a polka, she shrank from him in this complimentary mood, and declared she
should dance no more that evening. He appealed to Honora, who, disliking
to have her boy balked of even a polka, asked Phoebe if she were _very_
tired, and considering her 'rather not' as equivalent to such a
confession, proposed a retreat to their own room.

Phoebe was sorry to leave the brilliant scene, and no longer to be able
to watch Lucilla, but she wanted to shake Owen off, and readily
consented. She shut her door after one good night. She was too much
grieved and disappointed to converse, and could not bear to discuss
whether the last hope were indeed gone, and whether Lucilla had decided
her lot without choosing to know it. Alas! how many turning-points may
be missed by those who never watch!

How little did Phoebe herself perceive the shoal past which her
self-respect had just safely guided her!

'I wonder if those were ball-room manners? What a pity if they were, for
then I shall not like balls,' was all the thought that she had leisure to
bestow on her own share in the night's diversions, as through the
subsequent hours she dozed and dreamt, and mused and slept again, with
the feverish limbs and cramp-tormented feet of one new to balls;
sometimes teased by entangling fishing flies, sometimes interminably
detained in the moonlight, sometimes with Miss Fennimore waiting for an
exercise, and the words not to be found in the dictionary; and even this
unpleasant counterfeit of sleep deserting her after her usual time for
waking, and leaving her to construct various fabrics of possibilities for
Robin and Lucy.

She was up in fair time, and had written a long and particular account to
Bertha of everything in the festivities not recorded in this narrative,
before Miss Charlecote awoke from the compensating morning slumber that
had succeeded a sad and unrestful night. Late as they were, they were
down-stairs before any one but the well-seasoned Rashe, who sat beguiling
the time wi