of a lull, by the side-wind of all the rest of the motion,
and giving our young woman, so far at least as Fanny was concerned, the
sense of some special intention of encouragement and applause. Fanny,
who had not been present at the other dinner, thanks to a preference
entertained and expressed by Charlotte, made a splendid show at this
one, in new orange-coloured velvet with multiplied turquoises, and
with a confidence, furthermore, as different as possible, her hostess
inferred, from her too-marked betrayal of a belittled state at Matcham.
Maggie was not indifferent to her own opportunity to redress this
balance--which seemed, for the hour, part of a general rectification;
she liked making out for herself that on the high level of Portland
Place, a spot exempt, on all sorts of grounds, from jealous
jurisdictions, her friend could feel as "good" as any one, and could
in fact at moments almost appear to take the lead in recognition and
celebration, so far as the evening might conduce to intensify the lustre
of the little Princess. Mrs. Assingham produced on her the impression
of giving her constantly her cue for this; and it was in truth partly
by her help, intelligently, quite gratefully accepted, that the
little Princess, in Maggie, was drawn out and emphasised. She couldn't
definitely have said how it happened, but she felt herself, for the
first time in her career, living up to the public and popular notion
of such a personage, as it pressed upon her from all round; rather
wondering, inwardly too, while she did so, at that strange mixture in
things through which the popular notion could be evidenced for her by
such supposedly great ones of the earth as the Castledeans and their
kind. Fanny Assingham might really have been there, at all events, like
one of the assistants in the ring at the circus, to keep up the pace
of the sleek revolving animal on whose back the lady in short spangled
skirts should brilliantly caper and posture. That was all, doubtless
Maggie had forgotten, had neglected, had declined, to be the little
Princess on anything like the scale open to her; but now that the
collective hand had been held out to her with such alacrity, so that she
might skip up into the light, even, as seemed to her modest mind,
with such a show of pink stocking and such an abbreviation of white
petticoat, she could strike herself as perceiving, under arched
eyebrows, where her mistake had been. She had invited for the later