ot, but never
expects to be called to remember the next morning, when one bows to the
object thereof in the Ring, and the flavor of the claret-cup and the
scent of the cigar are both fled with the moonbeams and forgotten.

Cecil gave the Colonel and his flirtation a glance, and let Cossetting
lean over the back of her chair and deliver himself of some
lackadaisical sentiment (taken second-hand out of "Isidora" or the
"Amant de la Lune," and diluted to be suitable for presentation to her),
looking up at him with her large velvet eyes, or flashing on him her
radiant smile, till Horace pulled up his little stiff collar, coaxed his
flaxen whiskers, looked at her with his half-closed light eyes--and
thought himself irresistible--and Miss Screechington broke the string of
the purse she was making, and scattered all the steel beads about the
floor in the futile hope of gaining his attention. Blanche went down on
her knees and spent twenty minutes hunting them all up; but as I helped
her I saw the turquoise eyes looked anything but grateful for our
efforts, though if Blanche had done anything for me with that ready
kindness and those soft little white hands, I should have repaid her
very warmly. But oh, these women! these women! Do they ever love one
another in their hearts? Does not Chloris always swear that Lelia's
gazelle eyes have a squint in them and Delia hint that Daphne, who is
innocent as a dove, is bad style, and horridly bold?

At last Cecil got tired of Cos's drawling platitudes, and walked up to
one of the windows. "How is the ice, will anybody tell me? I am wild to
try it, ain't you, Blanche? If we are kept waiting much longer, we will
have the carpets up and skate on the oak floors."

I told her I thought they might try it safely. "Then let us go after
luncheon, shall we?" said Cecil. "It is quite sunny now. You skate, of
course, Sir Horace?"

"Oh! to be sure--certainly," murmured Cos. "We'd a quadrille on the
Serpentine last February, Talbot, and I, and some other men--lots of
people said they never saw it better done. But it's rather cold--don't
you think so?"

"Do you expect to find ice in warm weather?" said Vivian, curtly, from
the fire, where he was standing watching the commencement of the
note-case.

"No. But I hate cold," said Horace, looking at his snowy fingers. "One
looks such a figure--blue, and wet, and shivering; the house is much the
best place in a frost."

"Poor fellow!" said Vivian, wi