e proper grades of welcome, from eager cordiality to a
coldness that verged on disdain. To her best friends she gave her hand
in truly English style; for the rest she had smiles, apportioned to the
degrees of intimacy,--simple inclination of the head for unknown
guests or those of less account; with little speeches now and then, and
delicious mamma-like airs for the tiny children whom it is necessary to
ask to these juvenile routs, however dangerous and difficult to manage
that element may be.

With the fathers and mothers of her guests, as the ball was not given
for them, Nais as a general thing reversed the nature of the Gospel
invocation, _Sinite parvulos venire ad me_, and was careful not to
pass the limit of cold though respectful politeness. But when Lucas,
following the instructions he had received, reversed the natural order
of things and announced, "Mesdemoiselles de la Roche-Hugon, Madame la
Baronne de la Roche-Hugon, and Madame la Comtesse de Rastignac," the
little strategist laid aside her reserve, and, running up to the wife of
the minister, she took her hand and pressed it to her lips with charming
grace.

After the dancing began, Nais was unable to accept all the invitations
which the elegant young lions vied with one another in pressing upon
her; in fact, she grew sadly confused as to the number and order of
her engagements,--a circumstance which very nearly led, in spite of the
_entente cordiale_, to an open rupture between France and perfidious
Albion. A quadrille doubly promised, to a young English peer aged ten
and a pupil in the Naval School of about the same years, came very near
producing unpleasant complications, inasmuch as the young British scion
of nobility had assumed a boxing attitude. That fray pacified, another
annoying episode occurred. A small boy, seeing a servant with a tray of
refreshments and being unable to reach up to the objects of his greed,
had the deplorable idea of putting his hand on the edge of the tray and
bending it down to him. Result: a cascade of mingled orgeat, negus,
and syrups; and happy would it have been had the young author of this
mischief been the only sufferer from the sugary torrent; but, alas!
nearly a dozen innocent victims were splashed and spattered by the
disastrous accident,--among them four or five bacchantes, who were
furious at seeing their toilets injured, and would fain have made an
Orpheus of the clumsy infant. While he was being rescued with grea