laugh, though equally merry, had another tone, for she knew she had
lost.

Out they stepped upon the polished floor, he holding her hand in his,
awaiting the pause in the music to take the step. I shall never forget
the sight of those two standing there together--Mary, dark-eyed and
glowing; Brandon, almost rosy, with eyes that held the color of a deep
spring sky, and a wealth of flowing curls crowning his six feet of
perfect manhood, strong and vigorous as a young lion. Mary, full of
beauty-curves and graces, a veritable Venus in her teens, and Brandon,
an Apollo, with a touch of Hercules, were a complement each to the
other that would surely make a perfect one.

When the music started, off they went, heel and toe, bow and courtesy,
a step forward and a step back, in perfect time and rhythm--a poem of
human motion. Could Brandon dance? The princess had her answer in the
first ten steps. Nothing could be more graceful than Brandon's
dancing, unless it were Mary's. Her slightest movement was grace
itself. When she would throw herself backward in thrusting out her
toe, and then swing forward with her head a little to one side, her
uplifted arm undulating like the white neck of a swan,--for her
sleeve, which was slit to the shoulder, fell back and left it
bare,--she was a sight worth a long journey to see. And when she
looked up to Brandon with a laugh in her brown eyes, and a curving
smile just parting her full, red lips, that a man would give his very
luck to--but I had better stop.

"Was there ever a goodlier couple?" I asked Jane, by whose side I sat.

"Never," she responded as she played, and, strange to say, I was
jealous because she agreed with me. I was jealous because I feared it
was Brandon's beauty to which she referred. That I thought would
naturally appeal to her. Had he been less handsome, I should perhaps
have thought nothing of it, but I knew what my feelings were toward
Mary, and I judged, or rather misjudged, Jane by myself. I supposed
she would think of Brandon as I could not help thinking of Mary. Was
anything in heaven or earth ever so beautiful as that royal creature,
dancing there, daintily holding up her skirts with thumb and first
finger, just far enough to show a distracting little foot and ankle,
and make one wish he had been born a sheep rather than a sentient man
who had to live without Mary Tudor? Yet, strange as it may seem, I was
really and wholly in love with Jane; in fact, I loved no