ite frock, and sighed. But she did
not look so much amiss as she supposed: she was young, slight, and full
of subtle character. And with her scarlet coral beads twisted among her
dark little turret curls and bows, there was piquancy and attraction in
Chrissy. But her first purely disinterested and unbounded pleasure in
the gaiety was grievously chequered, and it was to be feared the account
she would carry home of her first ball to expectant Blackfaulds would be
disappointing.

There were only two chaises in repair in Priorton, to convey the whole
townspeople in rotation to the ball. It was thus unavoidable that some
should be very early, as well as some very late. Mr. Spottiswoode, as
Provost, was of course among the first after the Colonel and his lady,
old country people, who stood arm-in-arm, bluff and bland, under the
evergreens over the door, and shook hands with everybody, great and
small--a family of pretty girls meanwhile laughing behind them.

Mrs. Spottiswoode wore a splendid bunch of white feathers tipped with
straw-colour in her blue gauze turban. Even Chrissy's dazed eyes noticed
that, as well as the white ribbon in Provost Spottiswoode's bottle-green
coat, which pointed him out an honorary steward. But how handsome brown
curly Bourhope looked in his red coat!

A strange thought came over Chrissy. She did not wish Corrie, in her
white crape and French ribbons, and so tall and straight and fair, to
be blighted in her beauty--no, not for a moment. But Chrissy was cruel
enough to cherish a passing wish that, by some instantaneous
transformation, Bourhope might be pitted with smallpox, or scarred with
gunpowder, or have premature age brought upon him as with the wave of a
wand--the soul within being left unchanged, however.

Mrs. Spottiswoode, unlike Chrissy, was quite alive to the practical. She
remarked everything with keen eyes, and determined now to be at the
bottom of the business. She should either go in and win triumphantly, or
take a sudden tack and sail away with flying colours, as if she had
never entertained the most distant intention of coming to close
quarters, and thus give the impression that she never had any intention
of promoting a match between Bourhope and Corrie.

Mrs. Spottiswoode thought Bourhope looked as if he were going to do
something desperate. His first blunder had been to hand, or rather lift,
Chrissy into the chaise instead of Corrie, at starting from their own
door. He repe