Piggy, he moves about in more awful awe of my uncle than ever--and so
stiff! I am always expecting to see him bristle!"

There came a message that my lady was ready, and was asking for Miss
Tracy to go down with her. Viola fluttered away, and I waited till
they should have had time to descend before making my own appearance,
finding all the rooms in the cleared state incidental to ball
preparations--all the chairs and tables shrunk up to the walls; and
even the drawing-room, where the chaperons were to sit, looking some
degrees more desolate than the drawing-room of a ladyless house
generally does look.

Full in the midst of an immense blue damask sofa sat Lady Diana, in
grey brocade. She was rather a small woman in reality, but dignity
made a great deal more of her. Eustace, with a splendid red camellia
in his coat, was standing by her, blushing, and she was graciously
permitting the presentation of the squirting violet. "Since it was a
birthday, and it was a kind attention," &c., but I could see that she
did not much like it; and Viola, sitting on the end of the sofa with
her eyes downcast, was very evidently much less delighted than
encumbered with the fragile china thing.

Lord Erymanth met me, and led me up to his sister, who gave me a cold
kiss, and we had a little commonplace talk, during which I could see
Viola spring up to Harold, who was standing beside her brother, and the
colour rising in his bronzed face at her eager acknowledgments of the
flower-pot; after which she applied herself to begging her brother to
let his horse and groom go over early the next morning for the
Christmas gifts she had left behind, but Dermot did not seem
propitious, not liking to trust the man he had with him with the
precious Jack o'Lantern over hills slippery with frost; and Viola, as
one properly instructed in the precariousness of equine knees, subsided
disappointed; while I had leisure to look up at the two gentlemen
standing there, and I must say that Harold looked one of Nature's
nobles even beside Dermot, and Dermot a fine, manly fellow even beside
Harold, though only reaching to his shoulder.

I was the greatest stranger, and went in to the dining-room with his
lordship, which spared me the sight of Eustace's supreme satisfaction
in presenting his arm to Lady Diana, after she had carefully paired off
Viola with her cousin Piggy--i.e., Pigou St. Glear, the eldest son of
the heir-presumptive, a stiff, shy youth in