e kingdom, and wrote most damaging reports of him at the
end of the holidays, and despatched those letters of Bellerophon by the
boy's own hand to the schoolmaster, with the natural results.

When Aunt Rebecca rustled into the ring that was gathered round about
the fiddles and tambourine, she passed Miss Magnolia very near, with a
high countenance, and looking straight before her, and with no more
recognition than the tragedy queen bestows upon the painted statue on
the wing by which she enters. And Miss Mag followed her with a titter
and an angry flash of her eyes. So Aunt Rebecca made up to the little
hillock--little bigger than a good tea-cake--on which the dowager was
perched in a high-backed chair, smiling over the dancers with a splendid
benignity, and beating time with her fat short foot. And Aunt Becky told
Mrs. Colonel Stafford, standing by, she had extemporised a living
Watteau, and indeed it _was_ a very pretty picture, or Aunt Becky would
not have said so; and 'craning' from this eminence she saw her niece
coming leisurely round, not in company of Mervyn.

That interesting stranger, on the contrary, had by this time joined
Lilias and Devereux, who had returned toward the dancers, and was
talking again with Miss Walsingham. Gertrude's beau was little Puddock,
who was all radiant and supremely blest. But encountering rather a black
look from Aunt Becky as they drew near, he deferentially surrendered the
young lady to the care of her natural guardian, who forthwith presented
her to the dowager; and Puddock, warned off by another glance, backed
away, and fell, unawares, helplessly into the possession of Miss
Magnolia, a lady whom he never quite understood, and whom he regarded
with a very kind and polite sort of horror.

So the athletic Magnolia instantly impounded the little lieutenant, and
began to rally him, in the sort of slang she delighted in, with plenty
of merriment and malice upon his _tendre_ for Miss Chattesworth, and
made the gallant young gentleman blush and occasionally smile, and bow a
great deal, and take some snuff.

'And here comes the Duchess of Belmont again,' said the saucy Miss
Magnolia, seeing the stately approach of Aunt Becky, as it seemed to
Puddock, through the back of her head. I think the exertion and frolic
of the dance had got her high blood up into a sparkling state, and her
scorn and hate of Aunt Rebecca was more demonstrative than usual. 'Now
you'll see how she'll run against