ight
of day was danced down to inspiriting music: and now Arabella sent word
for Besworth hall-doors and windows to be opened; and on the company
beginning to disperse, there beckoned promise of a brilliant
supper-table.

"Admirable!" said Lady Gosstre, and the encomium was general among the
crowd surrounding Arabella; for up to this point the feasting had been
delicate, and something like plain hunger prevailed. Indeed, Arabella had
heard remarks of a bad nature, which she traced to the Tinley set, and
bore with, to meet her present reward. Making light of her triumph, she
encouraged Freshfield to start a wit-contest, and took part in it
herself, with the gaiety of an unoccupied mind. Her sisters had aforetime
more than once challenged her supremacy, but they bowed to it now; and
Adela especially did when, after a ringing hit to Freshfield (which the
Tinleys might also take to their own bosoms), she said in an undertone,
"What is there between C. and--?" Surprised by this astonishing vigilance
and power of thinking below the surface while she performed above it,
Adela incautiously turned her face toward the meditative baronet, and was
humiliated by Arabella's mute indication of contempt for her coming
answer. This march across the lawn to the lighted windows of Besworth was
the culmination of Brookfield's joy, and the crown for which it had
striven; though for how short a term it was to be worn was little known.
Was it not a very queenly sphere of Fine Shades and Nice Feelings that
Brookfield had realized?

In Arabella's conscience lay a certain reproach of herself for permitting
the "vice of a lower circle" to cling to her--viz., she had still
betrayed a stupid hostility to the Tinleys: she had rejoiced to see them
incapable of mixing with any but their own set, and thus be stamped
publicly for what they were. She had struggled to repress it, and yet,
continually, her wits were in revolt against her judgement. Perhaps one
reason was that Albert Tinley had haunted her steps at an early part of
the day; and Albert--a sickening City young man, "full of insolence, and
half eyeglass," according to Freshfield--had once ventured to propose for
her.

The idea that the Tinleys strove to catch at her skirts made Arabella
spiteful. Up to the threshold of Besworth, Freshfield, Mr. Powys, Tracy,
and Arabella kept the wheel of a dazzling run of small-talk, throwing
intermittent sparks. Laura Tinley would press up, apparently to