ee the walls; a maze of lights was
all my vision grasped--I felt bewildered--happy. We stopped a moment
and he bent down and smiled at me.

"You look as if you liked dancing," he said. "Poor Lady Tilchester is
being mauled by that bear in your place."

I laughed. "I love dancing."

"I seldom do this sort of thing," he continued, "but you are a
beautiful mover," and we began again.

When it was over we went and sat down in the very alcove of my first
dance with Augustus. I had no uneasiness this time!

I can't say what there was about my partner--a whimsical humor, a
slight mocking sound in his voice, which pleased me; he took nothing
seriously; everything he said was as light as a thistle-down; he
reminded me of the wit of grandmamma and the Marquis; we got on
beautifully.

"I seem to have seen you before," he said, at last. "Have I met you
in Paris? or am I only dreaming? because I know you so well in the
galleries at Versailles--you stepped down from those frames just to
honor us to-night, did you not?--and you will go back at cock-crow!"

"If I only could!"

He asked me if I was staying at Brackney or Henchhurst, and when I
said no, that I lived only a few miles off, he seemed so surprised.

His brown hair crimps nicely and is rather gray above the ears, but he
does not look very old, perhaps not more than thirty-five or so, and
now that one can see both his eyes, one realizes that they are rather
attractive. A grayish, greeny-blue, with black edges, and such black
eyelashes! They are as clear as clear, and I am sure he is a cat and
can see in the dark. He laughed at some of the people, even the ones
who think themselves great, and he made me feel that he and I were the
same and on a plane by ourselves, which was delightful. All this time
I did not know his name, nor he mine. As he moved I saw a gold chain
in the pocket of his white waistcoat, and just peeping out was the
hilt of my little lost knife. I said nothing--I don't know why--it
pleased me to see it there. He had been away in the smoking-room most
of the evening, he said, playing bridge.

The Marquis is teaching it to grandmamma out of a book, but I do not
care for cards--and it seemed to me such a dull way to spend a ball. I
told him so.

"I like this better," he said, quite simply, "but then at most balls
one does not meet a dainty marquise out of the eighteenth century. Let
me see, was there not a story of the great Dumas about a _demoiselle