The chief guest--a marquis, with an aristocratic limp and only one
eye--has begged of her a square dance. Two lords--one very young, the
other distressingly old--have also solicited her hand in the "mazy
dance." She is the reigning belle; and she knows it.

Beautiful, sparkling, brilliant, she moves through the rooms. A great
delight, a joyous excitement, born of her youth, the music, her own
success, fills her. She has a smile, a kindly look, for every one. Even
Mr. Buscarlet, in the blackest of black clothes and rather indifferent
linen, venturing to address her as she goes by him, receives a gracious
answer in return. So does Mrs. Buscarlet, who is radiant in pink satin
and a bird-of-paradise as a crown.

"Ain't she beautiful?" says that substantial matron, with a beaming air
of approbation, as though Molly was her bosom friend, addressing the
partner of her joys. "Such a lovely-turned jaw! She has quite a look of
my sister Mary Anne when a girl. I wish, my dear, she was to be heiress
of Herst, instead of that stuck-up girl in yellow."

"So do I; so do I," replies Buscarlet, following the movements of
Beauty as she glides away, smiling, dimpling on my lord's arm.
"And--ahem!"--with a meaning and consequential cough--"perhaps she may.
Who knows? There is a certain person who has often a hold of her
grandfather's ear! Ahem!"

Meantime the band is playing its newest, sweetest strains; the air is
heavy with the scent of flowers. The low ripple of conversation and
merry laughter rises above everything. The hours are flying all too
swiftly.

"May I have the pleasure of this waltz with you?" Sir Penthony is
saying, bending over Lady Stafford, as she sits in one of the
numberless small, dimly-lit apartments that branch off the hall.

"Dear Sir Penthony, do you think I will test your good-nature so far?
You are kind to a fault, and I will not repay you so poorly as to avail
myself of your offer. Fancy condemning you to waste a whole dance on
your--wife!"

The first of the small hours has long since sounded, and she is a
little piqued that not until now has he asked her to dance.
Nevertheless, she addresses him with her most charming smile.

"I, for my part, should not consider it a dance wasted," replies he,
stiffly.

"Is he not self-denying?" she says, turning languidly toward Lowry,
who, as usual, stands beside her.

"You cannot expect me to see it in that light," replies he, politely.

"May I hope for this