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taught them. Little women burying their noses in big men's coatsleeves; big women trying not to rest their chins on the top of little men's heads; men who hold their partner's hand out, like a pumphandle, sawing the air with it up and down; men who hold their partner's hand on their own hip, describing an acute angle with the elbow; men who hug their partners like polar bears; men who hold their partners uncomfortably tumbling out of their arms, as if they were afraid of coming near them; men who run round their partners, men who kick, men who scratch, men who knock knees; every variety, in fact, of the human animal, rushing violently round, doing their best to make themselves giddy and tear their clothes.

"Are you going to dance this with me, or are you not?" asks Lenore, impatiently; "because, if not, I will ask some one else-I mean, I will make some one else ask me."

"Of course I am."

"What are you waiting for then? why don't you start? I am mad to begin! Tum te tum! if they play this air when I am in my coffin, I shall jump up and galop in my shroud."

In a second more, the black and silver gown has joined the merry mad rout of reds and blues and greens and whites. After half a dozen turns Lenore pants a little, and says, "Stop."

"That means that I dance badly," says Paul, releasing her from his arms.

"It means that I am never long-winded; doctors often say that I ought not to dance."

"Not really?" incredulously looking at her cheeks, carnationed by the movement of the dance-at her great clear eyes. "I say, Lenore, do I dance very atrociously? It is a thing that I do not do once in a month of Sundaye."

"Not very," replies Lenore, rather slowly; "you have not quite got into my step yet, but that will come.' (Then, seeing him look a little. mortified,) "You are not like Major Webster, who leaps his own height in the air every step he takes, and gets round the room in three bounds, like a kangaroo."

Paul laughs. "That is modest praise."

Meanwhile Sylvia has been safely piloted to the top of the room, and enthroned between Mrs. Webster and another diamonded dowager. Jemima and Miss Webster remain standing. To take a seat is virtually to confess yourself shelved; to remain standing, is an advertisement that you are still to be had.

"You won't take a turn, I suppose?" Scrope says to Mrs. Prodgers, as he prepares to saunter away.

She has so often announced her intention of not dancing that he thinks the invitation-in itself dissuasively worded-may be safely hazarded. But human prescience is often at fault.

"Would you mind holding my bouquet for me, dear Mrs. Webster?" says Sylvia, getting down with some alacrity from her bench. "Thanks so much! You see" (with a little affected shrug), "I am fated not to be left in peace. It seems a little hard upon the girls, doesn't it? but one cannot pass on one's partners, can one? they would not like it. I assure you I had no more idea of dancing-but one gets so tired of saying 'No,' 'No,' 'No,'--such an old friend too—you need not smile— he is, really!"

"Quite right, my dear, quite right!" replies Mrs. Webster, nodding good-humouredly. She is very comfortably perched herself, and she has long given up her daughter as a bad job. "I only wish that Miss Jemima could find a partner too-where is James?" (standing up on the raised footboard, whence she can get a commanding view over the company's heads); "he was here a minute ago, and he had no partner then his had thrown him over-I am sure he would be most happy!"

"Oh! no, no, no, thanks!" replies Jemima, in a frenzy at the thought of being crammed down James' unwilling throat. "I am quite happy, I assure you! I like looking on; it amuses me, and some one will be sure to turn up just now."

Miss Webster smiles; she always does: she has smiled through eight and thirty years of hope deferred. Callow boys and fat old married men are her sheet-anchor, and she is on the look out for such

now.

The dance ends; the sound of scampering and shuffling ceases suddenly; people's voices drop from bawling pitch to their natural key; everybody streams to the doors. The house seems to have been built for the express purpose of furthering love-making. From the ballroom long corridors diverge in every direction, dimly lit; and out of these corridors open many quiet rooms, also dimly lit.

"Let us go into the passages!" cries Lenore, " and I will show you all the holes and corners, where I perpetrated my worst atrocities in flirtation last year."

"On the same principle, I suppose," replies Paul, laughing, "which makes a man always take his second wife to visit the tomb of his first ?"

They find a bench, retired, yet not lonely, where, in shade themselves, they can see men and girls, men and girls, men and girls, go trooping by couples flirting, couples not flirting, couples trying to flirt, couples trying not to flirt. It is a bench that only holds two people; well armed, well cushioned, where, half hidden behind Lenore's spread fan, they lean together and whisper gaily.

"Paul! Paul! do you see that girl?-how dirty the body of her dress is ?"

"Cannot say that I remarked it."

"It is, though; as dirty as the ground. She and her sisters

always make a point of coming to these balls in filthy dresses, to mark the distinction between themselves and the clean, crisp, townspeople." "It is patrician dirt, is it? I respect it."

"Do you see that big person in pink? Last year she went to the Assembly in a wreath of mistletoe; you may imagine the conse

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"Her partner always gets very drunk. Last time I saw him was in the Ansons' supper-room; he was sitting on a lump of ice, crying bitterly."

"Lenore, why are you hiding your face?"

"Hush! hush! young Anson is coming this way; he would be sure to ask me to dance, and dancing with him is like going into a battle, without the glory."

Young Anson passes safely by, looking neither to the right hand nor the left.

"I breathe again. Paul!" (edging a little nearer to him, and dropping her voice, more for the pleasure of whispering than from any dread of being overheard); "Paul, do you mean to let me dance when we are married ?"

"H'm! I shall see."

"We shall not be able to go to many balls," says Lenore, sighing, "for we shall have no clothes."

"Speak for yourself."

"We must stay at home, and have tea and shrimps; of course, we shall not be able to afford dinner."

"Shall not we?" (looking rather aghast). "Does dinner cost more than tea and shrimps?"

"Of course it does: shrimps are only fourpence a pint ?"

Paul shudders.

"Could not you make it prawns?”

"Certainly not; tea and shrimps it must be-perhaps watercresses in the height of the season-and after tea, you will read the paper in carpet slippers-not the Times,-we shall not be able to afford the Times-but some penny paper-and I shall sit opposite you, with my hair flat to my head, and low down over my ears-is not that it?hemming a duster!"

"I do not believe you can hem.”

The music has struck up again: Lancers, this time. Fewer couples trail and saunter by: most have returned to the ball-room. The fiddles' sharp loud squeak comes more softly to their ears; the merry cadence and marked time of the Lancers; then the little pause in the music, that tells one, without one's seeing, that the girls are all courtesying, and the men, with arms linked together, are galloping madly round, like savages before a wooden god.

Lenore's eyes dance softly, too, in this dusk place. "Lenore, I have a favour to ask you."

"Not a very big one, I hope."

"You will think it immense."

"What is it?"

"That you will dance with no one but me, to-night."

He had expected her to accede with eager alacrity, but on the contrary, she says nothing.

"I know that I dance badly, vilely," continues Paul, colouring a little. "I have long suspected it, and to-night" (laughing a little) " I learned it for a certainty, from your face, and from the eagerness with which you engaged me in conversation in the pauses of the dance, to hinder me from starting afresh. But why should we dance? Could we be better off than we are now ?"

"Not easily," she says, and says it truly; but she still evades replying to his request.

"I want to have a feast of your society to-night," says Paul, earnestly; "think what a fast I have had!-six months! We seem to know each other so little yet, and even there," (giving a vague nod to express Sylvia's abode), "jolly as it is, we never seem to get five minutes' talk, without Jemima bouncing in at one door, or Sylvia ambling in at another, or those imps of Satan rushing in and playing the devil's tattoo on one's shins."

"Good heavens,

"Children of Belial!" says Lenore, tersely. Paul! how I hate the young of the human species! Don't you?" Paul looks rather shocked. "Don't say that-it is unwomanly." "Of course," retorts she, sarcastically, "to a man they may be imps of Satan, but to the ideal woman they must always be cherubs-biting, kicking, scratching cherubs-but cherubs always. By-the-by, Paul (with a sudden change of tone), "how is the ideal woman? Have you seen her lately?"

Paul turns his head away, and says, "Fiddlesticks!"

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"Paul, Paul! I have an idea! How red you are! Look me in the face-don't turn the back of your head to me. Is it she that wears her hair flat, and eschews frisettes?"

Paul turns round as bidden. His face is undeniably red; he is not laughing, and his eyes are rather defiant.

"Does she wear a poke bonnet?"

"Perhaps !"

"And a grey cloak down to her heels?"

"Well ?"

"What if it is ?"

"I know all about her," says Lenore resentfully, her eyes flashing and cheeks ablaze; "a puritanical little prig!"

"I do not see what good it does you abusing a person you have never seen," says Paul, in a rather surly voice, "nor what it has to

say to whether you are willing to sacrifice this one evening to me or not."

"Certainly not!" replies the girl, angrily; "Why should I? What have you done to deserve it? Yesterday you scolded me till I cried-everybody saw my red eyes; to-day you forgot the common civility of getting me a bouquet; and you are always trotting out another woman's virtues and beauties at my expense. Certainly not! I will dance like a Monad with all my old friends."

Paul's forehead wrinkles into a frown, and his mouth turns down, as is his way when extremely vexed. "All right! Do!" he says, in a constrained voice. She had spoken with petulant half-meaning; had expected to be coaxed, entreated, scolded even, out of her perverse determination; but he employs neither coaxings, entreaties, nor scoldings-he acquiesces with dumb pride. They sit side by side in sullen silence, till disturbed by the sound of approaching voices, feet, and the long rustle and swish of a woman's infinite gown.

"You must take me back to the ball-room," Sylvia is saying, as she flutters her fan and smiles; "you must indeed. If people come out and find us sauntering about here they will be sure to say that I am flirting with you, and there is nothing in life that I should dislike so much as that-oh! here you are!"

Both are too sulky to answer.

"Not been dancing? Very wise of you! Look how much better you have come off than I!-in ribbons-absolutely in tatters. And Charlie has got a yard and a half of me in his pocket, have not you?” She looks up at him playfully, with round complacent eyes, and then stops suddenly.

To even Sylvia's comprehension it is evident that he has not heard a word she has been saying; his eyes are fixed with steady intentness on Lenore. Paul is gazing vacantly down the long vista of the fast refilling corridors. "Are you engaged for the next dance, Miss

Lenore ?"

"What is it?" (nonchalantly) "a quadrille ?"

"It is a valse."

She peeps at Paul, out of the corner of one eye; not a sign of relenting on the ill-tempered gravity of his face. Well! she can be as cross and sulky as he, at a pinch.

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"Shall I be likely to find you here still after I have taken Mrs. Prodgers back to the ball-room ?"

"I will not trouble you," replies Sylvia, rather offended at the slight hint of anxiety to be rid of her, unintentionally implied in these last words. "I am going" (with a coquettish smile) "to put

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