ncluded her in the invitation; so Mrs. Blake and Addie did what
they could to improve their black sheep's appearance.

Lottie, dressed for the eventful evening, was left alone for a moment
before the three went down. She felt shy, dispirited and sullen. Her
ball-dress encumbered and constrained her. "I hate it all," she said to
herself, beating impatiently with her foot upon the ground. Something
moving caught her eye: it was her reflection in a mirror. She paused and
gazed in wonder. Was this slender girl, arrayed in a cloud of
semi-transparent white, really herself--the Lottie who only a few days
before had raced Robin Wingfield home across the fields, had been the first
over the gap and through the ditch into the rectory meadow, and had rushed
away with the November rain-drops driving in her face? She gazed on: the
transformation had its charms, after all. But the shadow came back: "It's
no use. Addie's prettier than I ever shall be: I must be second all my
life. Second! If I can't be A 1, I'd as soon be Z 1000! I won't go about
to be a foil to her. I'd ten times rather race with Robin; and I will too!
They sha'n't coop me up and make a young lady of me!"

She caught the flash of her indignant glance in the glass and paused.

"_Those eyes of yours!_"

_Must_ she be second all her life? Had she not a power and witchery of her
own? Might she not even distance Addie in the race? "I've more brains than
she has," mused Lottie.

Her heart was beating fast as they came down stairs. They had only arrived
by a late train, which gave them just time to dress; and Mrs. Blake had
rather exceeded the allowance, so that most of the guests had arrived and
the first quadrille was nearly ended as they came in. Lottie followed her
mother and Addie as they glided through the crowd, and when they paused she
stood shy and fierce, casting lowering glances around.

She heard their hostess say to some one, "Do let me find you a partner."

A well-known voice replied, "Not this time, thank you: I'm going to try to
find one for myself;" and Percival stood before her, looking, to her
girlish fancy, more of a hero than ever in the evening-dress which became
him well. The perfectly-fitting gloves, the flower in his coat, a dozen
little things which she could not define, made her feel uncouth and
anxious, fascinated and frightened, all at once. Had he greeted her in the
patronizing way in which he had talked to her of old, she would have been