f saying; "but we
must limit our guests."

It did not matter either who was fashionable and who was not, the
duchess would have nothing but beauty and grace at her balls. You were
sure at Hexham House to meet the most beautiful women in London and the
most eligible men. It was consequently agreed on all sides that her
grace gave the best balls during the season. This one at which Lady
Amelie was to be present, promised unusual splendor.

An archduke of one of the European courts was just then the guest of the
queen, and he had promised to honor Hexham House with his presence.

"He shall see such lovely women," said the duchess to her husband, "that
he shall go back to his own country in despair."

To Lady Amelie she had said, laughingly: "Look your very loveliest. I
want you to make a conquest of the archduke."

And that queen of coquettes thought to herself that her hands on that
eventful evening would indeed be full. Not one word did the diplomatic
old colonel say to Basil, but that young man was not quite himself. He
had been wonderfully attracted by Lady Lisle's face; he read poetry,
love of romance and everything else beautiful and piquant in it. Of all
the women he had seen she was the only one who had interested him. He
wondered whether the mind matched the peerless face. She must be clever,
witty, brilliant, he thought, or she would not have kept all those men
enchained as she did. He was very anxious to see her again.

"If she is like everyone else," he said, "I shall soon be disenchanted,
but if she speaks as she looks, she will indeed be peerless among
women."

He longed for the evening. He said nothing of her, but he talked so
incessantly of the Duchess of Hexham, that the colonel understood
exactly where his thoughts were, and smiled again most knowingly to
himself.

He looked at his young kinsman in his faultless evening dress, and said
to himself that there was not in all England a more noble or handsome
man.

Lady Amelie called all the skill of the milliner to her aid; her dress
was superb and effective--gold flowers on a white ground--a dress that
irresistibly reminded one of sunbeams; it fell around her in statuesque
folds that would have driven a sculptor to despair. Her beautiful neck
and white arms were bare. She wore a diamond necklace of almost
priceless value; her dark, shining hair was crowned with a circlet of
the same royal stones; a diamond bracelet clasped one rounded arm. As
she