e
was a constant wonder and puzzle to me. After that night at the theatre
my hopes had risen for the hundredth time, but I had gone to Prince
George Street on the morrow to meet another rebuff--and Fitzhugh. So I
had learned to interpret her by other means than words, and now her mood
seemed reckless rather than merry.

"Are you not happy, Dolly?" I asked abruptly.

She laughed. "What a silly question!" she said. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I believe you are not."

In surprise she looked up at me, and then down at the pearls upon her
satin slippers.

"I am going with you to your birthday festival, Richard. Could we wish
for more? I am as happy as you."

"That may well be, for I might be happier."

Again her eyes met mine, and she hummed an air. So we came to the gate,
beside which stood Diomedes and Hugo in the family claret-red. A coach
was drawn up, and another behind it, and we went down the leafy walk in
the midst of a bevy of guests.

We have no such places nowadays, my dears, as was my grandfather's. The
ground between the street and the brick wall in the rear was a great
stretch, as ample in acreage as many a small country-place we have in
these times. The house was on the high land in front, hedged in by old
trees, and thence you descended by stately tiers until you came to the
level which held the dancers. Beyond that, and lower still, a lilied
pond widened out of the sluggish brook with a cool and rustic
spring-house at one end. The spring-house was thatched, with windows
looking out upon the water. Long after, when I went to France, I was
reminded of the shy beauty of this part of my old home by the secluded
pond of the Little Trianon. So was it that King Louis's Versailles had
spread its influence a thousand leagues to our youthful continent.

My grandfather sat in his great chair on the sward beside the fiddlers,
his old friends gathering around him, as in former years.

"And this is the miss that hath already broken half the bachelor hearts
in town!" said he, gayly. "What was my prediction, Miss Dolly, when you
stepped your first dance at Carvel Hall?"

"Indeed, you do me wrong, Mr. Carvel!"

"And I were a buck, you would not break mine, I warrant, unless it were
tit for tat," said my grandfather; thereby putting me to more confusion
than Dolly, who laughed with the rest.

"'Tis well to boast, Mr. Carvel, when we are out of the battle," cried
Mr. Lloyd.

Dolly was carried off immediately,