Josephine Harrowby? Why should that make her sad? She did not think
now that her mother was crying in heaven because another woman was in
her place; and for herself it made no difference whether there was a
step-mother at home or no. She could not be more lonely than she
was; and with Josephine at the head of affairs she would have less
responsibility. No, it was not that which was making her unhappy; and
yet she was almost as miserable to-night as she had been when madame
was brought home as papa's wife, and her fancy gave her mamma's
beloved face weeping there among the stars--abandoned by all but
herself, forsaken even by the saints and the angels.

Everything to-night oppressed her. The lights dazzled her with
what seemed to her their hard and cruel shine; the passing dancers
radiantly clad and joyous made her giddy and contemptuous; the
flower-scents pouring through the room from the plants within and from
the gardens without gave her headache; the number of people at the
ball--people whom she did not know and who stared at her, people
whom she did know and who talked to her--all overwhelmed as well as
isolated her. She seemed to belong to no one, now that Edgar had let
her slip from his hands so coldly--not even to Mrs. Corfield, who had
brought her, nor yet to her faithful friend and guardian Alick, who
wandered round and round about her in circles like a dog, doing his
best to make her feel befriended and to clear her dear face of some of
its sadness. Doing his best too, with characteristic unselfishness,
to forget that he loved her if it displeased her, and to convince her
that he had only dreamed when he had said those rash words when the
lilacs were first budding in the garden at Steel's Corner.

It was quite early in the evening when Edgar danced this uninteresting
"square" with Leam, whom then he ceremoniously handed back to Mrs.
Corfield, as if this gathering of friends and neighbors in the country
had been a formal assemblage of strangers in a town.

"I hope you are not tired with this quadrille," he said as he took her
across the room, not looking at her.

"It was dull, but I am not tired," Learn answered, not looking at him.

"I am sorry I was such an uninteresting partner," was his rejoinder,
made with mock simplicity.

"A dumb man who does not even talk on his fingers cannot be very
amusing," returned Learn with real directness.

"You were dumb too: why did you not talk, if dull, on your finger