combe's, what _could_ I do, now I ask
you?" appealing to her with hands and eyes. "What _could_ I do?"

"Obey, of course," says she with an effort, but a successful one. "You
must hurry too, if you want to secure Miss Dunscombe."

"Ah; what a misfortune it is to be the brother of one's hostess," says
he, with a sort of comic despair. His eyes are centred on her face,
reading her carefully, and with much secret satisfaction;--rapid as that
slight change upon her face had been, he had seen and noted it.

"It couldn't possibly be a misfortune to be Lady Baltimore's brother,"
says she smiling. "On the contrary, you are to be congratulated."

"Not just at this moment surely!"

"At this or any other moment. Ah!"--as they enter the ballroom. "The
room is already fuller than I thought. Engaged, Mr. Blake?" to Lord
Blake's eldest son. "No, not for this. Yes, with pleasure."

She makes a little charming inclination of her head to Beauclerk, and
laying her hand on Mr. Blake's arm, moves away with him to where a set
is already forming at the end of the room. It is without enthusiasm she
takes her place with Dysart and one of the O'Donovan girls as
_vis-a-vis_, and prepares to march, retreat, twist and turn with the
best of them.

"A dull old game," she is irreverently terming the quadrilles--that
massing together of inelegant movements so dear to the bucolic
mind--that saving clause for the old maids and the wall-flowers; when a
little change of position shows her the double quartette on the right
hand side of the magnificent ballroom.

She had been half through an unimportant remark to Mr. Blake, but she
stops short now and forgets to finish it. Her color comes and goes. The
sides are now prancing through _their_ performance, and she and her
partner are standing still. Perhaps--_perhaps_ she was mistaken; with
all these swaying idiots on every side of her she might well have mixed
up one man's partner with another; and Miss Dunscombe (she had caught a
glimpse of her awhile ago) was surely in that set on the right hand
side.

She stoops forward, regardless--_oblivious_--of her partner's surprised
glance, who has just been making a very witty remark, and being a rather
smart young man, accustomed to be listened to, is rather taken aback by
her open indifference.

A little more forward she leans; yes, _now_--the couples part--for one
moment the coast lies clear. She can see distinctly. Miss Dunscombe is
indeed dancing in