e acknowledged to be the
prevailing and suitable sentiments.

Even the large drawing-room at Abinghall wouldn't hold the dancers, so
a floor and a huge tent had been imported from London, and joined to
the house by a covered way. A famous Viennese band played on a stage
at one end, and around the sides were raised red baize seats for those
who wanted to watch the dancing. Lady Campion received her guests at
the door of the large drawing-room; she caught Mary by the arm and held
her to whisper rapidly, "I don't know half the people, Mary, do help
me, and if you see anyone looking neglected, say a kind word, and get
partners, like a dear. I depended on your mother, and now she has
failed me."

Naturally the Liberal candidate was bidden to the dance, and Eloquent
arrayed in the likeness of one of Cromwell's soldiers, a dress he had
worn in a pageant last summer, was standing exactly opposite the
entrance to the tent, when at the second dance on the programme
Phyllida and the Farmer's Boy came in, and with the greatest good-will
in the world proceeded to Boston with all the latest and dreadful
variations of that singularly unbeautiful dance. Grantly had imported
the very newest thing from Woolwich, Mary was an apt pupil, and the two
of them made a point always of dancing the first dance together
wherever they were. They were singularly well-matched, and tonight
their height, their quaint dress, their remarkable good looks and
their, to Marlehouse eyes, extraordinary evolutions, made them
immediately conspicuous.

Eloquent, stiff, solemn, and uncomfortable in his wide-leaved hat and
flapping collar, watched the smock-frock and russet gown as they bobbed
and glided, and twirled and crouched in the mazes of that mysterious
dance, and the moment they stopped, shouldered his way through the
usual throng of pierrots, flower-girls, Juliets, Carmens, Sikhs, and
Chinamen to Lady Campion, who was standing in the entrance quite near
the milk-maid who was already surrounded by would-be partners.

"Lady Campion, will you present me to Miss Ffolliot," Eloquent asked in
a stand-and-deliver sort of voice, the result of the tremendous effort
it had been to approach her at all.

She looked rather surprised, but long apprenticeship to politics had
taught her that you must bear all things for the sake of your party, so
she smiled graciously on the stiff, rosy-faced Cromwellian, and duly
made the presentation.

"May I," Eloquent as