pronounced
flirtation. Now, in the confusion of the greeting between the Grange
party and the rectory people, it had quite escaped Lady Mary that
Lionel Beauchamp shook hands like an old acquaintance with Sylla. She
had, therefore, no idea that they had met before this evening, and her
dismay at finding Mr. Beauchamp improving his opportunities with Miss
Sylla, when she had pictured him similarly engaged with Blanche, may be
easily imagined. However, crossing over to the culprit, she observed,
with a pleasant smile,

"Not half a bad ball, Mr. Beauchamp, I think. I can only hope you find
it so. I really am quite glad I was persuaded into coming. By the
way, what have you done with Blanche? She was dancing with you when I
last saw her some half-hour ago."

"Oh, the room was so warm,", replied Lionel, "we came down here to get
cool; and then Mr. Cottrell and Miss Sylla joined us; and then Cottrell
told Miss Bloxam that it was his dance--or you wanted her--or
something, and----"

"Left me as a substitute," interrupted Sylla Chipchase.

"Ah, well," said Lady Mary, "if Mr. Cottrell is taking care of her,
Blanche is in good hands; I need not trouble myself much about her."

"You make a terrible mistake there, Lady Mary," said Sylla, in accents
of mock anguish. "Mr. Cottrell is one of the most dangerous and
inconstant of his sex. He made most desperate love last year to me in
Suffolk, whispers pretty speeches into my ear the whole of this
evening, and then turns me over--consigns me, I believe, is the proper
term--to Mr. Beauchamp as if I were a bale of calico!" And the young
lady assumed the prettiest attitude of most pitiable resignation.

"I was quite right," thought Lady Mary, as she resumed her cavalier's
arm: "it is as I thought; that girl is as practised and brazen a flirt
as ever crossed a poor woman's schemes. It was an ill wind that blew
her into Fernshire this Easter."

"Come along, Lionel," said Sylla; "remember that here we must not call
each other by our Christian names. Fernshire don't understand that we
have been brought up together. In Suffolk it's different; but
Fernshire will be putting it down as my habit to call all gentlemen by
their Christian names, and I certainly don't want that."

"As you like, Syl--I mean, Miss Chipchase," replied Lionel; and with
that they made their way to the ball-room, where Jim Bloxam immediately
claimed the young lady's hand.

In the course of their danc