ked, with quite awful solemnity, "have the pleasure
of a dance?"

"I've got twelve or fourteen and an extra, but I can't promise to dance
any one of them if other people are sitting out, because I've promised
Lady Campion to help see to people. I'll give you one if you'll
promise to dance it with someone else--if necessary----"

Eloquent looked blue. "Isn't that rather hard?" he asked meekly.

"Everyone's in the same box," Mary said shortly, "and you, of all
people, ought simply to dance till your feet drop off. Let me see your
card--What? no dances at all down? Oh, that's absurd--come with me."
And before poor Eloquent could protest he found himself being whisked
from one young lady to another, and his card was full all except
twelve, fourteen, and the second extra--which he rigidly reserved.

"There," said Mary, smiling upon him graciously, "that's well over.
I've been most careful; you are dancing with just about an equal number
of Liberal and Tory young ladies, and you ought to take at least five
mamas into supper; don't forget; look pleased and eager, and be careful
what you say to the pretty girl in pink, she's a niece of our present
member."

Here a partner claimed Mary, and Eloquent, feeling much as the White
King must have felt when Alice lifted him from the hearth to the table
(he certainly felt dusted), went to seek one Miss Jessie Bond whose
name figured opposite the number on his programme that was just
displayed on the bandstand.

He really worked hard. He danced carefully and laboriously--he had had
lessons during his last year in London--and entirely without any
pleasure. So far, he had fulfilled Mary's instructions to the very
letter, except in the matter of looking "pleased and eager." His
round, fresh-coloured face maintained its habitual expression of rather
prim gravity. The Liberal young ladies, while gratified that he should
have danced with them, thought him distinctly dull, the Tory young
ladies declared him an insufferable oaf; but Phyllida the tall
milk-maid, when she came across him in the dance, nodded and smiled at
him in kindly approval. He noticed that she danced several times with
the plain young man in the Elizabethan ruff, and that they seemed very
good friends.

At last number twelve showed on the bandstand. Eloquent was not very
clear as to whether Mary had given him this dance or not, but he went
to her to claim it. It came just before the supper dances.

"Yes,