ung Billy offered himself to the
bride, as he said he as the representative of the Lord of the Castle had
a right to the loveliest lady; and, with his young, stolid
self-confidence, he pushed Lord Elterton aside.

Zara had not danced for a very long time--four years at least--and she
had not an idea of the two-steps and barn-dances and other sorts of
whirling capers that they invented; but she did her best, and gradually
something of the excitement of the gay young spirits spread to her, and
she forgot her sorrows and began to enjoy herself.

"You don't ever dance, I suppose, Mr. Markrute?" Lady Ethelrida asked,
as she stopped, with the gallant old Crow, flushed and smiling by the
dais, where the financier and Lady Anningford sat. "If you ever do, I,
as the Lady of the Castle, ask you to 'tread a measure' with me!"

"No one could resist such, an invitation," he answered, and put his arm
around her for a valse.

"I do love dancing," she said, as they went along very well. She was so
surprised that this "grave and reverend signor," as she called him,
should be able to valse!

"So do I," said Francis Markrute--"under certain circumstances. This is
one of them." And then he suddenly held her rather tight, and laughed.
"Think of it all!" he went on. "Here we are, in thick boots and country
clothes capering about like savages round their fire, and, for all sorts
of reasons, we all love it!"

"It is just the delicious exercise with me," said Lady Ethelrida.

"And it has nothing at all to do with that reason with me," returned her
partner.

And Lady Ethelrida quivered with some sort of pleasure and did not ask
him what his reason was. She thought she knew, and her eyes sparkled.
They were the same height, and he saw her look; and as they went on, he
whispered:

"I have brought you down the book we spoke of, you know, and you will
take it from me, won't you? Just as a remembrance of this day and how
you made me young for an hour!"

They stopped by one of the benches at the side and sat down, and Lady
Ethelrida answered softly,

"Yes, if--you wish me to--"

Lord Elterton had now dislodged Young Billy and was waltzing with Zara
himself: his whole bearing was one of intense devotion, and she was
actually laughing and looking up in his face, still affected by the
general hilarity, when the door of the wooden porch that had been built
on as an entrance opened noiselessly, and some of the shooters peeped
into the room.