ated the unaccountable blunder at the County Rooms, which
compelled him to take Chrissy into the ball-room; and while Chrissy was
still gazing in bewilderment and admiration at the evergreens and
chalked floors, and talking, laughing couples, Mrs. Spottiswoode could
scarcely believe her ears when she distinctly heard Bourhope ask
Chrissy's hand for the first dance, saying that he would have engaged it
before if he had got the opportunity.

Now Mrs. Spottiswoode had no doubt that Bourhope would solicit her
sister Corrie for this dance, and therefore she had peremptorily
forbidden Corrie to engage herself in any other quarter, even when
Corrie had demurred at the certainty of the arrangement. It was very odd
of Bourhope, unless he thought Chrissy would have no chance of any other
partner, and wanted to spare a plain little girl's mortification at the
very commencement of the evening. "That must be it," Mrs. Spottiswoode
said to herself, and was consoled by Corrie's hand being immediately
requested for the Colonel's nephew.

The Colonel's wife opened the ball with the most popular and oldest
private for partner, and, of course, Chrissy and Bourhope stood below
Corrie and the Colonel's nephew. But Bourhope and Chrissy did not mind
Corrie's precedence, and were talking to each other quite intimately.
Bourhope was forgetting the figure and bending across to Chrissy, though
he was saying nothing particular, and speaking out quite loud. But he
looked engrossed and excited. If it had been any other girl but Chrissy,
Mrs. Spottiswoode would have called it a flirtation, and more than a
flirtation. Chrissy looked well in her shabby dress, almost pretty
indeed, in the new atmosphere. Mrs. Spottiswoode was aggrieved,
disgusted in the first instance, but she would not just yet believe such
an incredible contradiction to her well-laid scheme. Match-making
involves so many parties, there are such wheels within wheels of
calculation and resource. She glanced at Corrie, who was dancing very
complacently with the Colonel's nephew, and exchanging passing words
with yeomen who tried to get speech with her. In her white crape, and
teeth as white, and her dimples, she was safe, heart-whole and
prosperous--a beauty who might pick and choose a suitable husband,
even though Bourhope, infatuated, threw himself away.

Mrs. Spottiswoode gave a sigh of relief. Failure now would only be
comparative.

The dance being over, Bourhope sat down beside