able to pull it off.'

'And the worst of it is,' said a girl, 'every year we are growing more
and more numerous, and the men seem to be getting fewer. Nowadays a man
won't look at you unless you have at least two thousand a year.'

Mrs. Barton, who did not wish her daughters to be discouraged from the
first, settled her skirts with a movement of disdain. Mrs. Gould
pathetically declared she did not believe love to be dead in the world
yet, and maintained her opinion that a nice girl could always marry. But
Bertha was not easily silenced, and, being perfectly conversant with her
subject, she disposed of Dublin's claims as a marriage-mart, and she
continued to comment on the disappointments of girls until the
appearance of Lord Dungory and Mr. Harding brought the conversation to a
sudden close.

'_Une causerie de femme! que dites-vous?--je le suis--l'amour
n'existe plus, et l'ame de l'homme est plus pres des sens que l'ame de
la femme_,' said Milord. Everyone laughed; and, with a charming movement
of her skirts, Mrs. Barton made room for him to sit beside her.

Harding withdrew to the other end of the room to resume his reading, and
Alice did not dare to hope that he would lay aside his book and come to
talk to her. If he did, her mother would ask her to introduce him to
her, and she would have to enter into explanations that he and she had
merely exchanged a few words before dinner.

She withstood the conversation of the charmed circle as long as she
could, and then boldly crossed the room for a newspaper. Harding rose to
help her to find one, and they talked together till Milord took him away
to the billiard-room.

May, who had been vainly expecting Fred the whole evening, said:

'Well, Alice, I hope you have had a nice flirtation?'

'And did you notice, May, how she left us to look for a newspaper. Our
Alice is fond of reading, but it was not of reading she was thinking
this evening. She kept him all to herself at the other end of the room.'
Mrs. Barton laughed merrily, and Alice began to understand that her
mother was approving her flirtation. That is the name that her mother
would give her talk with Mr. Harding.

XVI

During the Dublin Season it is found convenient to give teas: the young
ladies have to be introduced to the men they will meet after at the
Castle. These gatherings take place at five o'clock in the afternoon;
and as Mrs. Barton started from the Shelbourne Hotel for Lady Georgina
St