trayed into feeling fond of
father in my life. They all drink it, each wishing him something good.
As for me, I have been a fool always, and I am a fool now. I can wish
him nothing, my voice is choked and my eyes drowned in inappropriate
tears; only, from the depths of my heart, I ask God to give him every
thing that He has of choicest and best. For a moment or two, the
wax-lights, the purple grapes, the gleaming glass and shining silver,
the kindly, genial faces swim blurred before my vision. Then I hastily
wipe away my tears, and smile back at them all. As I raise my glistening
eyes, I meet those of Mr. Musgrave fixed upon me--(he is the only
stranger present). His look is not one that wishes to be returned; on
the contrary, it is embarrassed at being met. It is a glance that
puzzles me, full of inquiring curiosity, mixed with a sort of mirth. In
a second--I could not tell you why--I look hastily away.

"I wonder what he is doing _now, this very minute_!" says Tou Tou, who
is dining in public for the first time, and whose conversation is
checked and her deportment regulated by Bobby, who has been at some
pains to sit beside her, and who guides her behavior by the help of many
subtle and unseen pinches under the table; from revolting against which
a fear of father hinders her, a fact of which Bobby is most basely
aware.

"Had not you better telegraph?" asks Algy, with languid irony (Algy
certainly is not quite so nice as he used to be). "Flapping away the
blue-tailed fly, with a big red-and-yellow bandana, probably."

"Playing the banjo for a lot of little niggers to dance to!" suggests
the Brat.

"They are all wrong, are not they, Nancy?" says Bobby, in a lowered
voice, to me, on whose left hand he has placed himself; "he is sitting
in his veranda, is not he? in a palm hat and nankeen breeches, with his
arm around the old Wampoo."

"I dare say," reply I, laughing. "I hope so," for, indeed, I am growing
quite fond of my dusky rival.

The ball is to be in the servants' hall; it is a large, long room, and
thither, when all the guests are assembled, we repair. We think that we
shall make a greater show, and inspire more admiration, if we appear in
pairs. I therefore make my entry on father's arm. Never with greater
trepidation have I entered any room, for I am to open the ball with the
butler, and the prospect fills me with dismay. If he were a venerable
family servant, a hoary-headed old seneschal, who had known R