ce behind me, of a fierce voice in my ear.

"I had an idea, Lady Tempest, that this was _our_ dance!"

"So it was!" reply I, cheerfully; "but you see I have cut you!"

"So I perceive!"

"Had not you better call Bobby out!" cry I, with a jeering laugh, tired
of his eternal black looks. "You really are _too_ silly! I wish I had a
looking-glass here to show you your face!"

"Do you?" (very shortly).

Repartee is never Frank's forte. This is all that he now finds with
which to wither me. However, even if he had any thing more or more
pungent to say, I should not hear him, for I am beginning to dance off
again.

"What a fool he is to care!" says Bobby, contemptuously; "after all, he
is an ill-tempered beast! I suppose if one kicked him down-stairs it
would put a stop to his marrying Barbara, would not it?"

I laugh.

"I suppose so."

It is over now. The last long-drawn-out notes have ceased to occupy the
air. As far as _we_ are concerned, the ball is over, for we have quitted
it. We have at length removed the _gene_ of our presence from the
company, and have left them to polka and schottische their fill until
the morning. We have reached our own part of the house. My cheeks are
burning and throbbing with the quick, unwonted exercise. My brain is
unpleasantly stirred: a hundred thoughts in a second run galloping
through it. I leave the others in the warm-lit drawing-room, briskly
talking and discussing the scene we have quitted, and slip away through
the door, into a dark and empty adjacent anteroom, where the fire lies
at death's door, low and dull, and the candles are unlighted.

I draw the curtains, unbar the shutters, and, lifting the heavy sash,
look out. A cold, still air, sharp and clear, at once greets my face
with its frosty kisses. Below me, the great house-shadow projects in
darkness, and beyond it lies a great and dazzling field of shining snow,
asleep in the moonlight.

Snow-trees, snow-bushes, sparkle up against the dusk quiet of the sky.
No movement anywhere! absolute stillness! perfect silence! It is broken
now, this silence, by the church-clock with slow wakefulness chiming
twelve. Those slow strokes set me a thinking. I hear no longer the loud
and lively voices next door, the icy penetration of the air is unfelt by
me, as I lean, with my elbow on the sill, looking out at the cold grace
of the night. My mind strays gently away over all my past life--over the
last important year. I think of my w