those persons did
their duty by their country acquaintances, and asked them, one to
dinner, another--oh, happiness to Chatty--to a dance. But it did not
turn out unmingled happiness for Chatty after all, though she got a new
dress for it, in which she looked prettier (her mother thought, who was
no flattering mother) than she had ever done in her life. Mrs. Warrender
saw the awakening in Chatty's face which gave to her simple good looks a
something higher, a touch of finer development; but the mother neither
deceived herself as to the cause of this, nor was at all alarmed by it.
Dick was a quite suitable match for Chatty; he was well connected, he
was not poor, he was taking up his profession, if somewhat late, yet
with good prospects. If there had been escapades in his youth, these
were happily over, and as his wild oats had been sown on the other side
of the Atlantic, no one knew anything about them. Why, then, should she
be alarmed to see that Chatty opened like a flower to the rising of this
light which in Dick, too, was so evident as to be unmistakable? In such
circumstances as these the course of true love would be the better of a
little obstacle or two; the only difficulty was that it might run too
smooth. Mrs. Warrender thought that, perhaps, it was well to permit
such a little fret in the current as this dance proved to be. She could
have got Dick an invitation had she pleased, but was hard-hearted and
refrained. And Chatty did not enjoy it. She said (with truth) that there
was very little room for dancing; that to sit outside upon the stairs
with a gentleman you didn't know, among a great many other girls and men
whom you didn't know, was not her idea of a hall; and that if this was
the London way, she liked a dance in the country much better. The time
when she did enjoy it was next day, when she gave her impressions of
it to Dick, who exulted as having not been there secretly over Mrs.
Warrender, who would not have him asked. Chatty grew witty in the
excitement of her little revenge on society, and on fate which had
drifted her into that strange country, without the ever-ready aid to
which she had grown accustomed of "some one she knew." "Yes, I danced,"
she said, "now and then, as much as we could. It was not Lady Ascot's
fault, mamma; she introduced a great many gentlemen to me, but sometimes
I could not catch their names, and when I did, how was I to remember
which was Mr. Herbert and which was Mr. Sidney, w