e moderate--three times. Let me see--the first waltz,
the waltz before supper, and the last galop."

"You will dance me off my head. It is dangerous to waltz with any one
so pretty," he said, in that bantering tone he often took with her,
and which aggravated her intensely.

"It is more likely that my own head will suffer, as I dance so rarely.
Then, that is a bargain?"

"Certainly."

"Dear me, Mildred, how silly you are; you are like a schoolgirl!" said
Miss Terry.

"Agatha is put out because you do not offer to dance three times with
her."

"Oh! but I will, though, if she likes; three quadrilles."

And so the matter passed off in mutual badinage; but Mildred did not
forget her intention. On the contrary, "society" at Madeira was soon
profoundly agitated by the intelligence that the lady Croesus, Mrs.
Carr, was about to give a magnificent ball, and so ill-natured--or,
rather, so given to jumping to conclusions--is society, that it was
freely said it was in order to celebrate her engagement to Arthur
Heigham. Arthur heard nothing of this; one is always the last to hear
things about oneself. Mildred knew of it, however, but, whether from
indifference or from some hidden motive, she neither took any steps to
contradict it herself, nor would she allow Miss Terry to do so.

"Nonsense," she said; "let them talk. To contradict such things only
makes people believe them the more. Mind now, Agatha, not a word of
this to Mr. Heigham; it would put him out."

"Well, Mildred, I should have thought that you would be put out too."

"I!--oh, no! Worse things might happen," and she shrugged her
shoulders.

At length the much-expected evening came, and the arriving guests
found that the ball had been planned on a scale such as Madeira had
never before beheld. The night was lovely and sufficiently still to
admit of the illumination of the gardens by means of Chinese lanterns
that glowed all around in hundreds, and were even hung like golden
fruit amongst the topmost leaves of the lofty cabbage palms, and from
the tallest sprays of the bamboos. Within, the scene was equally
beautiful. The suite of three reception-rooms had been thrown into
one, two for dancing, and one for use as a sitting-room. They were
quite full, for the Madeira season was at its height, and all the
English visitors who were "anybody" were there. There happened, too,
to be a man-of-war in the harbour, every man-jack, or, rather, every
officer-jack of wh