hipper before her marriage. And
so they gave him credit again. Thence his fine new wardrobe came. And
now they have heard the news and have all run mad in rage at their own
foolishness, and are hounding him out of his life."

The two ladies made heartless game enough of the anecdote. Perhaps both
had little spites of their own against Sir John, who in his heyday had
never spoke with a woman without laying siege to her heart and vanity,
though he might have but five minutes to do it in. Lady Betty, at
least, 'twas known had once had coquettish and sentimental passages
with him, if no more; and whether 'twas her vanity or her heart which
had been wounded, some sting rankled, leaving her with a malice against
him which never failed to show itself when she spoke or heard his name.

A curious passage took place between them but a short time after she
had told her story of his tricking of his creditors. 'Twas at a Court
ball and was a whimsical affray indeed, though chiefly remembered
afterwards because of the events which followed it--one of them
occurring upon the spot, another a day later, this second incident
being a mystery never after unravelled. At this ball was my Lady
Dunstanwolde in white and silver, and looking, some said, like a spirit
in the radiance of her happiness.

"For 'tis pure happiness that makes her shine so," said her faithful
henchman, old Sir Christopher. "Surely she hath never been a happy
woman before, for never hath she smiled so since I knew her first, a
child. She looks like a creature born again."

Lady Betty Tantillion engaged in her encounter in an antechamber near
the great saloon. Her ladyship had a pretty way of withdrawing from the
moving throng at times to seek comparative seclusion and greater ease.
There was more freedom where there would be exchange of wits and
glances, not overheard and beheld by the whole world; so her ladyship
had a neat taste in nooks and corners, where a select little court of
her own could be held by a charming fair one. Thus it fell that after
dancing in the ball-room with one admirer and another, she made her
way, followed by two of the most attentive, to a pretty retiring-room
quite near.

'Twas for the moment, it seemed, deserted, but when she entered with
her courtiers, the exquisite Lord Charles Lovelace and his friend Sir
Harry Granville, a gentleman turned from a window where he seemed to
have been taking the air alone, and seeing them uttered under