ensemble_.

The evening wore on; Mrs. Leigh proceeded with the turning of an old
merino dress; Miss Opie adjusted her spectacles, and read _Good Words_.
Bluebell sat down to the piano and executed a selection from Rossini's
'Messe Solennelle' with force and fervour.

"You play very well, child," said Miss Opie.

"That is fortunate," said Bluebell, "for I mean to be a governess."

"You mean you want a governess," retorted the other. "Why, what in the
world do you know?"

"More than most children of ten years old. I might get a hundred dollars
a year. Mamma, I could buy myself new boots then."

"You are nothing but a self-willed child yourself, unable to bear the
slightest disappointment," said Miss Opie.

"Never mind," said Mrs. Leigh, coaxingly; "I'll see if I cannot get you
the boots. They will give me credit at the store."

"No, no; I know you can't afford it; they were new last April. Mamma is
oil to your vinegar, Aunt Jane."

"And you the green young mustard in the domestic salad--hot enough, and,
like all ill weeds, growing apace."

"Then it is field mustard, and not used for salad," said Bluebell,
anxious for the last word. And, escaping from the room, went to place
some bones in the shed, for a casual in the shape of a starving cur, who
called occasionally for food and a night's lodging.

About twenty years ago, when this melancholy Mrs. Leigh was a lovely
young Canadian of rather humble origin, Theodore Leigh, a graceless
subaltern in the Artillery, had just returned from leave, and, going one
day to the Rink, was "regularly flumocksed," as he expressed it, by the
vision of Miss Lesbia Jones skimming over the ice like a swallow on the
wing. And when she proceeded to cut a figure of 8 backwards, and execute
another intricate movement called "the rose," his admiration became
vehement, and, seizing on a brother-officer he had observed speaking to
her, demanded an introduction.

"To the 'Tee-to-tum'? Oh, certainly."

Miss Lesbia was very small, and wore the shortest of petticoats, which
probably suggested the appellation.

Fatigued with her evolutions, she had sunk with a pretty little air of
_abandon_ on the platform, and her destiny, in a beaver coat and cap, was
presented by Mr. Wingfield.

After this, a common object at the Rink was a tall young man, in all the
agonies of a _debut_ on skates, and a bewitching little attendant sprite
shooting before and around him, occasionally righting him wit