inst eyes you were
tolerably safe, though not against ears; but this is of very secondary
importance. The man who would not assist a woman in distress (as the
stage sailor has it) by adhering to the whisper appropriate to the
imparting of interesting information, deserves to be--overheard.

Flora sank down on a convenient _causeuse_, still panting slightly--not
from breathlessness, but past excitement--the ground-swell after the
storm.

"Ah! what a waltz!" she said, with a sigh. "And what a pity it is so
nearly the last! I shall never find any one else who will understand my
step and pace so well."

"Why should it be nearly the last?" Guy asked, contemplating the varying
expression of her face and the somewhat careless _pose_ of her
magnificent figure with more than admiration in his eyes.

"_On se range,_" Flora answered, demurely. "And the first step in the
right direction will be to give up one's favorite partners."

He sat down by her with a short laugh that was rather forced.

"Bah! do you think, because we are virtuous, there shall be no more
cakes and ale?"

"Of course I do. I could sketch your future so easily. It will be so
intensely respectable. You will become a model country squire. You will
hunt a good deal, but never _ride_ any more. (You must sell the Axeine,
you know.) You will go to magistrates' meetings regularly, and breed
immense cattle; and you will grow very fat yourself. That's the worst of
all. I don't like to fancy you stout and unwieldy, like Athelstan."

She ended, pensively. The languor of reaction seemed stealing over her,
but it only made her more charming as she leaned still farther back on
the soft cushions, watching the point of her tiny foot tracing the
pattern of the carpet.

"What a brilliant horoscope!" said Guy; "and so benevolently sketched,
too! Now your own, Improvisatrice."

"I shall marry too," she answered, gravely. "I ought to have done so
long ago. Perhaps I shall make up my mind soon. Evil examples are so
contagious."

"And who will draw the great prize?"

"I have not the faintest idea. I suppose some fine old English
gentleman, who has a great estate."

"I only hope the said estate will be near Kerton," Livingstone
suggested; and he drew closer to his companion.

"Ah! dear old Kerton," she said, sighing again, "I shall never go there
any more."

"The reason?"

"Perhaps because my husband, whoever he may be, will not choose to bring
me."

"Absurd!" G