s there before
her to open it with a great bow, made with his hand upon his heart and
his fair locks falling.

"You rob us of the rapture of beholding great beauties, Madam," he said
in a low, impassioned voice. "But there should be indeed but _one_ happy
man whose bliss it is to gaze upon such perfections."

"I am fifteen years old to-night," she answered; "and as yet I have not
set eyes upon him."

"How do you know that, madam?" he said, bowing lower still.

She laughed her great rich laugh.

"Forsooth, I do not know," she retorted. "He may be here this very night
among this company; and as it might be so, I go to don my modesty."

And she bestowed on him a parting shot in the shape of one of her
prettiest young fop waves of the hand, and was gone from him.

* * * * *

When the door closed behind her and Sir John Oxon returned to the table,
for a while a sort of dulness fell upon the party. Not being of quick
minds or sentiments, these country roisterers failed to understand the
heavy cloud of spleen and lack of spirit they experienced, and as they
filled their glasses and tossed off one bumper after another to cure it,
they soon began again to laugh and fell into boisterous joking.

They talked mostly, indeed, of their young playfellow, of whom they felt,
in some indistinct manner, they were to be bereft; they rallied Sir
Jeoffry, told stories of her childhood and made pictures of her budding
beauties, comparing them with those of young ladies who were celebrated
toasts.

"She will sail among them like a royal frigate," said one; "and they will
pale before her lustre as a tallow dip does before an illumination."

The clock struck twelve before she returned to them. Just as the last
stroke sounded the door was thrown open, and there she stood, a woman on
each side of her, holding a large silver candelabra bright with wax
tapers high above her, so that she was in a flood of light.

She was attired in rich brocade of crimson and silver, and wore a great
hooped petticoat, which showed off her grandeur, her waist of no more
bigness than a man's hands could clasp, set in its midst like the stem of
a flower; her black hair was rolled high and circled with jewels, her
fair long throat blazed with a collar of diamonds, and the majesty of her
eye and lip and brow made up a mien so dazzling that every man sprang to
his feet beholding her.

She made a sweeping obeisance and then stood up before them, her head