there, still, as I happened to be dressed earlier
than I believed possible, I came down, and you----? Where were you?"

There is a touch of imperiousness in that last question that augurs
badly for a false wooer; but the imperiousness suits her. With her
pretty chin uptilted, and that little scornful curve upon her lips, and
her lovely eyes ablaze, she looks indeed "a thing of beauty." Beauclerk
regards her with distinct approbation. After all--had she even _half_
the money that the heiress possesses, _what_ a wife she would make. And
it isn't decided yet one way or the other; sometimes Fate is kind. The
day may come when this delectable creature may fall to his portion.

"I can see you are thinking hard things of me," says he reproachfully;
"but you little know how I have been passing the time I had so been
looking forward to. Time to be passed with _you_. That old Lady
Blake--she _would_ keep me maundering to her about that son of hers in
the Mauritius; _you_ know he and I were at St. Petersburg together. I
couldn't get away. You blame me--but what was I to do? An old
woman--unhappy----"

"Oh no. You were _right_," says Joyce quickly. How good he is after all,
and how unjustly she had been thinking of him. So kind, so careful of
the feelings of a tiresome old woman. How few men are like him. How few
would so far sacrifice themselves.

"Ah, you see it like that!" says, Mr. Beauclerk, not triumphantly, but
so modestly that the girl's heart goes out to him even more. How
_generous_ he is! Not a word of rebuke to her for her vile suspicion of
him.

"Why you put me into good spirits again," says he laughing gaily. "We
must make haste, I fear, if we would save the first dance."

"Oh yes--come," says Joyce going quickly forward. Evidently he is going
to ask her for the first dance! That _shows_ that he prefers her to----

"I'm so glad you have been able to sympathize with me about my last
disappointment," says Beauclerk. "If you hadn't--if you had had even one
hard thought of me, I don't know _how_ I should have been able to endure
what still lies before me. I am almost raging with anger, but when one's
sister is in question----"

"You mean?" say Joyce a little faintly.

"Oh, you haven't heard. I am so annoyed myself about it, that I fancied
everybody knew. You know I hoped that you would have been good enough to
give me the first dance, but when Isabel asked me to dance it with that
dreadful daughter of Lady Duns