Kitabı oku: «Mrs. Geoffrey», sayfa 13

Even Lady Rodney for the moment has fallen a prey to her unpremeditated charms, and is leaning forward anxiously watching her. Jack and Sir Nicholas are enchanted.

The shadows close them in on every side. Only the firelight illumines the room, casting its most brilliant and ruddy rays upon its central figures, until they look like beings conjured up from the olden times, as they flit to and fro in the slow mysterious mazes of the dance.

Mona's waxen arms gleam like snow in the uncertain light. Each movement of hers is full of grace and verve. Her entire action is perfect.

 
"Her feet beneath her petticoat
Like little mice, stole in and out,
As if they feared the light.
And, oh! she dances such a way,
No sun upon an Easter day
Is half so fine a sight."
 

The music, soft and almost mournful, echoes through the room; the feet keep time upon the oaken floor; weird-like the two forms move through the settled gloom.

The door at the farthest end of the room has been opened, and two people who are as yet invisible stand upon the threshold, too surprised to advance, too enthralled, indeed, by the sight before them to do so.

Only as Mrs. Geoffrey makes her final curtesy, and Geoffrey, with a laugh, stoops forward to kiss her lips instead of her hand, as acknowledgment of her earnest and very sweet performance, thereby declaring the same to have come to a timely end, do the new-comers dare to show themselves.

"Oh, how pretty!" cries one of them from the shadow as though grieved the dance has come so quickly to an end "How lovely!"

At this voice every one starts! Mona, slipping her hand into Geoffrey's, draws him to one side; Lady Rodney rises from her sofa, and Sir Nicholas goes eagerly towards the door.

"You have come!" cries he, in a tone Mona has never heard before, and then – there is no mistake about the fact that he and the shadow have embraced each other heartily.

"Yes, we have indeed," says the same sweet voice again, which is the merriest and softest voice imaginable, "and in very good time too, as it seems. Nolly and I have been here for fully five minutes, and have been so delighted with what we have seen that we positively could not stir. Dear Lady Rodney, how d'ye do?"

She is a very little girl, quite half a head shorter than Mona, and, now that one can see her more plainly as she stands on the hearthrug, something more than commonly pretty.

Her eyes are large and blue, with a shade of green in them; her lips are soft and mobile; her whole expression is debonnaire, yet full of tenderness. She is brightness itself; each inward thought, be it of grief or gladness, makes itself outwardly known in the constant changes of her face. Her hair is cut above her forehead, and is quite golden, yet perhaps it is a degree darker than the ordinary hair we hear described as yellow. To me, to think of Dorothy Darling's head is always to remind myself of that line in Milton's "Comus," where he speaks of

 
"The loose train of thy amber-drooping hair."
 

She is very sweet to look at, and attractive and lovable.

 
"Her angel's face
As the great eye of heaven shined bright,
And made a sunshine in the shady place."
 

Such is Nicholas's betrothed, to whom, as she gazes on her, all at once, in the first little moment, Mona's whole soul goes out.

She has shaken hands with everybody, and has kissed Lady Rodney, and is now being introduced to Mona.

"Your wife, Geoffrey?" she says, holding Mona's hand all the time, and gazing at her intently. Then, as though something in Mrs. Geoffrey's beautiful face attracts her strangely, she lifts her face and presses her soft lips to Mona's cheek.

A rush of hope and gladness thrills Mona's bosom at this gentle touch. It is the very first caress she has ever received from one of Geoffrey's friends or relations.

"I think somebody might introduce me," says a plaintive voice from the background, and Dorothy's brother, putting Dorothy a little to one side, holds out his hand to Mona. "How d'ye do, Mrs. Rodney?" he says, pleasantly. "There's a dearth of etiquette about your husband that no doubt you have discovered before this. He has evidently forgotten that we are comparative strangers; but we sha'n't be long so, I hope?"

"I hope not, indeed," says Mona giving him her hand with a very flattering haste.

"You have come quite half an hour earlier than we expected you," says Sir Nicholas, looking with fond satisfaction into Miss Darling's eyes. "These trains are very uncertain."

"It wasn't the train so much," says Doatie, with a merry laugh, "as Nolly: we weren't any time coming, because he got out and took the reins from Hewson, and after that I rather think he took it out of your bays, Nicholas."

"Well, I never met such a blab! I believe you'd peach on your grandmother," says her brother, with supreme contempt. "I didn't do 'em a bit of harm, Rodney I give you my word."

"I'll take it," says Nicholas; "but, even if you did, I should still owe you a debt of gratitude for bringing Doatie here thirty minutes before we hoped for her."

"Now make him your best curtsey, Dolly," says Mr. Darling, seriously; "it isn't everyday you will get such a pretty speech as that."

"And see what we gained by our haste," says Dorothy, smiling at Mona. "You can't think what a charming sight it was. Like an old legend or a fairy-tale. Was it a minuet you were dancing?"

"Oh, no; only a country dance," says Mona, blushing.

"Well, it was perfect: wasn't it, Violet?"

"I wish I could have seen it better," returns Violet, "but, you see, I was playing."

"I wish I could have seen it forever," says Mr. Darling, gallantly, addressing Mona; "but all good things have an end too soon. Do you remember some lines like these? they come to me just now:

 
When you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that."
 

"Yes, I recollect; they are from the 'Winter's Tale.' I think," says Mona, shyly; "but you say too much for me."

"Not half enough," says Mr. Darling, enthusiastically.

"Don't you think, sir, you would like to get ready for dinner?" says Geoffrey, with mock severity. "You can continue your attentions to my wife later on, – at your peril."

"I accept the risk," says Nolly, with much stateliness and forthwith retires to make himself presentable.

CHAPTER XXI
HOW NOLLY HAVING MADE HIMSELF PRESENTABLE, TRIES ALSO TO MAKE HIMSELF AGREEABLE – AND HOW HE SUCCEEDS

Mr. Darling is a flaxen-haired young gentleman of about four-and-twenty, with an open and ingenuous countenance, and a disposition cheerful to the last degree. He is positively beaming with youth and good spirits, and takes no pains whatever to suppress the latter; indeed, if so sweet-tempered a youth could be said to have a fault, it lies in his inability to hold his tongue. Talk he must, so talk he does, – anywhere and everywhere, and under all circumstances.

He succeeds in taking Mona down to dinner, and shows himself particularly devoted through all the time they spend in the dining-room, and follows her afterwards to the drawing-room, as soon as decency will permit. He has, in fact, fallen a hopeless victim to Mona's charms, and feels no shame in the thought that all the world must notice his subjugation. On the contrary, he seems to glory in it.

"I was in your country, the other day," he says, pushing Mona's skirts a little to one side, and sinking on to the ottoman she has chosen as her own resting-place. "And a very nice country it is."

"Ah! were you really there!" says Mona, growing at once bright and excited at the bare mention of her native land. At such moments she falls again unconsciously into the "thens," and "sures," and "ohs!" and "ahs!" of her Ireland.

"Yes, I was indeed. Down in a small place cabled Castle-Connell, near Limerick. Nice people in Limerick, but a trifle flighty, don't you think? Fond of the merry blunderbuss, and all that, and with a decided tendency towards midnight maraudings."

"I am afraid you went to almost the worst part of Ireland," says Mona, shaking her head. "New Pallas, and all round Limerick, is so dreadfully disloyal."

"Well, that was just my luck, you see," says Darling "We have some property there. And, as I am not of much account at home, 'my awful dad' sent me over to Ireland to see why the steward didn't get in the rents. Perhaps he hoped the natives might pepper me; but, if so, it didn't come off. The natives, on the contrary, quite took to me, and adopted me on the spot. I was nearly as good as an original son of Erin in a week."

"But how did you manage to procure their good graces?"

"I expect they thought me beneath their notice, and, as they wouldn't hate me, they were forced to love me. Of course they treated the idea of paying up as a good joke, and spoke a great deal about a most unpleasant person called Griffith and his valuation, whatever that may be. So I saw it was of no use, and threw it up, – my mission, I mean. I had capital shooting, as far as partridges were concerned, but no one dreamed of wasting a bullet upon me. They positively declined to insert a bit of lead in my body. And, considering I expected some civility of the kind on going over, I felt somewhat disappointed, and decidedly cheap."

"We are not so altogether murderous as you seem to think," says Mona, half apologetically.

"Murderous! They are a delightful people, and the scenery is charming, you know, all round. The Shannon is positively lovely. But they wouldn't pay a farthing. And, 'pon my life, you know," says Mr. Darling, lightly, "I couldn't blame 'em. They were as poor as poor could be, regular out-at-elbows, you know, and I suppose they sadly wanted any money they had. I told the governor so when I came back, but I don't think he seemed to see it; sort of said he wanted it too, and then went on to make some ugly and most uncalled-for remarks about my tailor's bill, which of course I treated with the contempt they deserved."

"Well, but it was a little hard on your father, wasn't it?" says Mona, gently.

"Oh, it wasn't much," says the young man, easily; "and he needn't have cut up so rough about it. I was a failure, of course, but I couldn't help it; and, after all, I had a real good time in spite if everything, and enjoyed myself when there down to the ground."

"I am glad of that," says Mona, nicely, as he pauses merely through a desire for breath, not from a desire for silence.

"I had, really. There was one fellow, a perfect giant, – Terry O'Flynn was his name, – and he and I were awful chums. We used to go shooting together every day, and got on capitally. He was a tremendously big fellow, could put me in his pocket, you know, and forget I was there until I reminded him. He was a farmer's son, and a very respectable sort of man. I gave him my watch when I was coming away, and he was quite pleased. They don't have much watches, by the by, the lower classes, do they."

At this Mona breaks into a sweet but ringing laugh, that makes Lady Rodney (who is growing sleepy, and, therefore, irritable) turn, and fix upon her a cold, reproving glance.

Geoffrey, too, raises his head and smiles, in sympathy with his wife's burst of merriment, as does Miss Darling, who stops her conversation with Sir Nicholas to listen to it.

"What are you talking about?" asks Geoffrey, joining Mona and her companion.

"How could I help laughing," says Mona. "Mr. Darling has just expressed surprise at the fact that the Irish peasantry do not as a rule possess watches." Then suddenly her whole face changes from gayety to extreme sorrow. "Alas! poor souls!" she says, mournfully, "they don't, as a rule, have even meat!"

"Well, I noticed that, too. There did seem to be a great scarcity of that raw material," answers Darling, lightly. "Yet they are a fine race in spite of it. I'm going over again to see my friend Terry before very long. He is the most amusing fellow, downright brilliant. So is his hair, by the by, – the very richest crimson."

"But I hope you were not left to spend your days with Terry?" says Mona, smiling.

"No. All the county people round when they heard of me – which, according to my own mental calculations on the subject, must have been exactly five minutes after my arrival – quite adopted me. You are a very hospitable nation, Mrs. Rodney; nobody can deny that. Positively, the whole time I was in Limerick I could have dined three times every day had I so chosen."

"Bless me!" says Geoffrey; "what an appalling thought! it makes me feel faint."

"Rather so. In their desire to feed me lay my only danger of death. But I pulled through. And I liked every one I met, – really you know," to Mona, "and no humbug. Yet I think the happiest days I knew over there were those spent with Terry. It was rather a sell, though, having no real adventure, particularly as I had promised one not only to myself but to my friends when starting for Paddy-land. I beg your pardon a thousand times! Ireland, I mean."

"I don't mind," says Mona. "We are Paddies, of course."

"I wish I was one!" says Mr. Darling, with considerable effusion. "I envy the people who can claim nationality with you. I'd be a Paddy myself to-morrow if I could, for that one reason."

"What a funny boy you are!" says Mona, with a little laugh.

"So they all tell me. And of course what every one says is true. We're bound to be friends, aren't we?" rattles on Darling pleasantly. "Our mutual love for Erin should be a bond between us."

"I hope we shall be; I am sure we shall," returns Mona, quickly. It is sweet to her to find a possible friend in this alien land.

"Not a doubt of it," says Nolly, gayly. "Every one likes me, you know. 'To see me is to love me, and love but me forever,' and all that sort of thing; we shall be tremendous friends in no time. The fact is, I'm not worth hating; I'm neither useful nor ornamental, but I'm perfectly harmless, and there is something in that, isn't there? Every one can't say the same. I'm utterly certain you can't," with a glance of admiration.

"Don't be unkind to me," says Mona, with just a touch of innocent and bewitching coquetry. She is telling herself she likes this absurd young man better than any one she has met since she came to England, except perhaps Sir Nicholas.

"That is out of my power," says Darling, whom the last speech – and glance that accompanied it – has completely finished. "I only pray you of your grace never to be unkind to me."

"What a strange name yours is! – Nolly," says Mona, presently.

"Well, I wasn't exactly born so," explains Mr. Darling, frankly; "Oliver is my name. I rather fancy my own name, do you know; it is uncommon, at all events. One don't hear it called round every corner, and it reminds one of that 'bold bad man' the Protector. But they shouldn't have left out the Cromwell. That would have been a finishing stroke. To hear one's self announced as Oliver Cromwell Darling in a public room would have been as good as a small fortune."

"Better," says Mona, laughing gayly.

"Yes, really, you know. I'm in earnest," declares Mr. Darling, laughing too. He is quite delighted with Mona. To find his path through life strewn with people who will laugh with him, or even at him, is his idea of perfect bliss. So he chatters on to her until, bed-hour coming, and candles being forced into notice, he is at length obliged to tear himself away from her and follow the men to the smoking-room.

Here he lays hands on Geoffrey.

"By Jove, you know, you've about done it," he says, bestowing upon Geoffrey's shoulder a friendly pat that rather takes the breath out of that young man's body. "Gave you credit for more common sense. Why, such a proceeding as this is downright folly. You are bound to pay for your fun, you know, sooner or later."

"Sir," says Mr. Rodney, taking no notice of this preamble, "I shall trouble you to explain what you mean by reducing an inoffensive shoulder-blade to powder."

"Beg pardon, I'm sure," says Nolly, absently. "But" – with sudden interest – "do you know what you have done? You have married the prettiest woman in England."

"I haven't," says Geoffrey.

"You have," says Nolly.

"I tell you I have not," says Geoffrey. "Nothing of the sort. You are wool-gathering."

"Good gracious! he can't mean that he is tired of her already," exclaims Mr. Darling, in an audible aside. "That would be too much even for our times."

At this Geoffrey gives way to mirth. He and Darling are virtually alone, as Nicholas and Captain Rodney are talking earnestly about the impending lawsuit in a distant corner.

"My dear fellow, you have overworked your brain," he says, ironically: "You don't understand me. I am not tired of her. I shall never cease to bless the day I saw her," – this with great earnestness, – "but you say I have married the handsomest woman in England, and she is not English at all."

"Oh, well, what's the odds?" says Nolly. "Whether she is French, or English, Irish or German, she has just the loveliest face I ever saw, and the sweetest ways. You've done an awfully dangerous thing. You will be Mrs. Rodney's husband in no time, – nothing else, and you positively won't know yourself in a year after. Individuality lost. Name gone. Nothing left but your four bones. You will be quite thankful for them, even, after a bit."

"You terrify me," says Geoffrey, with a grimace. "You think, then, that Mona is pretty?"

"Pretty doesn't express it. She is quite intense; and new style, too, which of course is everything. You will present her next season, I suppose? You must, you know, if only in the cause of friendship, as I wouldn't miss seeing Mrs. Laintrie's and Mrs. Whelon's look of disgust when your wife comes on the scene for worlds!"

"Her eyes certainly are – " says Geoffrey.

"She is all your fancy could possibly paint her; she is lovely and divine. Don't try to analyze her charms, my dear Geoff. She is just the prettiest and sweetest woman I ever met. She is young, in the 'very May morn of delight,' yet there is nothing of that horrid shyness – that mauvaise honte– about her that, as a rule, belongs to the 'freshness of morning.' Her laugh is so sweet, so full of enjoyment."

"If you mean me to repeat all this back again, you will find yourself jolly well mistaken; because, understand at once, I sha'n't do it," says Geoffrey. "I'm not going to have a hand in my undoing; and such unqualified praise is calculated to turn any woman's head. Seriously, though," says Geoffrey, laying his hands on Darling's shoulders, "I'm tremendously glad you like her."

"Don't!" says Darling, weakly. "Don't put it in that light. It's too feeble. If you said I was madly in love with your wife you would be nearer the mark, as insanity touches on it. I haven't felt so badly for years. It is right down unlucky for me, this meeting with Mrs. Rodney."

"Poor Mona!" says Geoffrey; "don't tell her about it, as remorse may sadden her."

"Look here," says Mr. Darling, "just try one of these, do. They are South American cigarettes, and nearly as strong as the real thing, and quite better: they are a new brand. Try 'em; they'll quite set you up."

"Give me one, Nolly," says Sir Nicholas, rousing from his reverie.

CHAPTER XXII
HOW MONA GOES TO HER FIRST BALL – AND HOW SHE FARES THEREAT

It is the day of Lady Chetwoode's ball, or to be particular, for critics "prove unkind" these times, it is the day to which belongs the night that has been selected for Lady Chetwoode's ball; all which sounds very like the metre of the house that Jack built.

Well, never mind! This ball promises to be a great success. Everybody who is anybody is going, from George Beatoun, who has only five hundred pounds a year in the world, and the oldest blood in the county, to the duchess, who "fancies" Lilian Chetwoode, and has, in fact, adopted her as her last "rave." Nobody has been forgotten, nobody is to be chagrined: to guard against this has cost both Sir Guy and Lilian Chetwoode many an hour of anxious thought.

To Mona, however, the idea of this dance is hardly pure nectar. It is half a terror, half a joy. She is nervous, frightened, and a little strange. It is the first time she has ever been to any large entertainment, and she cannot help looking forward to her own debut with a longing mingled largely with dread.

Now, as the hour approaches that is to bring her face to face with half the county, her heart fails her, and almost with a sense of wonder she contrasts her present life with the old one in her emerald isle, where she lived happily, if with a certain dulness, in her uncle's farmhouse.

All day long the rain has been pouring, pouring; not loudly or boisterously, not dashing itself with passionate force against pane and gable, but falling with a silent and sullen persistency.

"No walks abroad to-night," says Mr. Darling, in a dismal tone, staring in an injured fashion upon the drenched lawns and pleasaunces outside. "No Chinese lanterns, no friendly shrubberies, —nothing!"

Each window presents an aspect in a degree more dreary than the last, – or so it appears. The flower-beds are beaten down, and are melancholy in the extreme. The laurels do nothing but drip drip, in a sad aside, "making mournful music for the mind." Whilst up and down the elm walk the dreary wind goes madly, sporting and playing with the raindrops, as it rushes here and there.

Indoors King Bore stalks rampant. Nobody seems in a very merry mood. Even Nolly, who is generally game for anything, is a prey to despair. He has, for the last hour, lost sight of Mona!

"Let us do something, anything, to get rid of some of these interminable hours," says Doatie, flinging her book far from her. It is not interesting, and only helps to add insult to injury. She yawns as much as breeding will permit, and then crosses her hands behind her dainty head. "Oh! here comes Mona. Mona, I am so bored that I shall die presently, unless you suggest a remedy."

"Your brother is better at suggestions than I am," says Mona, gently, who is always somewhat subdued when in the room with Lady Rodney.

"Nolly, do you hear that? Come over to the fire directly, and cease counting those hateful raindrops. Mona believes in you. Isn't that joyful news? Now get out of your moody fit at once, like a dear boy."

"I sha'n't," says Mr. Darling, in an aggrieved tone. "I feel slighted. Mrs. Rodney has of malice prepense secluded herself from public gaze at least for an hour. I can't forget all that in one moment."

"Where have you been?" asks Lady Rodney, slowly turning her head to look at Mona. "Out of doors?" Her tone is unpleasant.

"No. In my own room," says Mona.

"Oh, Nolly! do think of some plan to cheat the afternoon of an hour or two," persists Doatie, eagerly.

"I have it," says her brother with all the air of one who has discovered a new continent. "Let's talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs."

At this Doatie turns her back on him, while Mona breaks into a peal of silver laughter.

"Would you not like to do that?" demands Nolly, sadly "I should. I'm quite in the humor for it."

"I am afraid we are not," says Violet, smiling too. "Think of something else."

"Well, if you all will insist upon a change, and desire something more lively, then, —

 
'For heaven's sake, let us sit upon the ground,
And tell sad stories of the death of kings.'
 

Perhaps after all you are right, and that will be better It will be rather effective, too, if uncomfortable, our all sitting on the polished floor."

"Fancy Nolly quoting Shakspeare," says Geoffrey, who has just entered, and is now leaning over Mona's chair. He stoops and whispers something in her ear that makes her flush and glance appealingly at Doatie. Whereon Miss Darling, who is quick to sympathize, rises, and soon learns what the whisper has been about.

"Oh! how charming!" she cries, clapping her hands. "The very thing! Why did we not think of it before? To teach Mona the last new step! It will be delicious." Good-natured Doatie, as she says this, springs to her feet and runs her hand into Mona's. "Come," she says. "Before to-night, I promise you, you shall rival Terpsichore herself."

"Yes, she certainly must learn before to-night," says Violet, with sudden and unexpected interest, folding and putting away her work as though bent on other employment. "Let us come into the ballroom."

"Do you know no other dances but those – er – very Irish performances?" asks Lady Rodney, in a supercilious tone, alluding to the country dance Mona and Geoffrey had gone through on the night of Doatie's arrival.

"No. I have never been to a ball in all my life," says Mona distinctly. But she pales a little at the note of contempt in the other's voice. Unconsciously she moves a few steps nearer to Geoffrey, and holds out her hand to him in a childish entreating fashion.

He clasps it and presses it lightly but fondly to his lips. His brow darkens. The little stern expression, so seldom seen upon his kindly face, but which is inherited from his father, creeps up now and alters him preceptibly.

"You mistake my mother," he says to Mona, in a peculiar tone, looking at Lady Rodney, not at her. "My wife is, I am sure, the last person she would choose to be rude to; though, I confess, her manner just now would mislead most people."

With the frown still on his forehead, he draws Mona's hand through his arm, and leads her from the room.

Lady Rodney has turned pale. Otherwise she betrays no sign of chagrin, though in her heart she feels deeply the rebuke administered by this, her favorite son. To have Mona be a witness of her defeat is gall and wormwood to her. And silently, without any outward gesture, she registers a vow to be revenged for the insult (as she deems it) that has just been put upon her.

Dorothy Darling, who has been listening anxiously to all that has passed, and who is very grieved thereat, now speaks boldly.

"I am afraid," she says to Lady Rodney, quite calmly, having a little way of her own of introducing questionable topics without giving offence, – "I am afraid you do not like Mona?"

At this Lady Rodney flings down her guard and her work at the same time, and rises to her feet.

"Like her," she says, with suppressed vehemence. "How should I like a woman who has stolen from me my son, and who can teach him to be rude even to his own mother?"

"Oh, Lady Rodney, I am sure she did not mean to do that."

"I don't care what she meant; she has at all events done it. Like her! A person who speaks of 'Jack Robinson,' and talks of the 'long and short of it.' How could you imagine such a thing! As for you, Dorothy, I can only feel regret that you should so far forget yourself as to rush into a friendship with a young woman so thoroughly out of your own sphere."

Having delivered herself of this speech, she sweeps from the room, leaving Violet and Dorothy slightly nonplussed.

"Well, I never heard anything so absurd!" says Doatie, presently, recovering her breath, and opening her big eyes to their widest. "Such a tirade, and all for nothing. If saying 'Jack Robinson' is a social crime, I must be the biggest sinner living, as I say it just when I like. I think Mona adorable, and so does every one else. Don't you?"

"I am not sure. I don't fall in love with people at first sight. I am slow to read character," says Violet, calmly. "You, perhaps, possess that gift?"

"Not a bit of it, my dear. I only say to myself, such and such a person has kind eyes or a loving mouth, and then I make up my mind to them. I am seldom disappointed; but as to reading or studying character, that isn't in my line at all. It positively isn't in me. But don't you think Lady Rodney is unjust to Mona?"

"Yes, I think she is. But of course there are many excuses to be made for her. An Irish girl of no family whatever, no matter how sweet, is not the sort of person one would select as a wife for one's son. Come to the ballroom. I want to make Mona perfect in dancing."

"You want to make her a success to-night," says Dorothy, quickly. "I know you do. You are a dear thing, Violet, if a little difficult. And I verily believe you have fallen as great a victim to the charms of this Irish siren 'without family' as any of us. Come, confess it."

"There is nothing to confess. I think her very much to be liked, if you mean that," says Violet, slowly.

"She is a perfect pet," says Miss Darling, with emphasis, "and you know it."

Then they adjourn to the ballroom, and Sir Nicholas is pressed into the service, and presently Jack Rodney, discovering where Violet is, drops in too, and after a bit dancing becomes universal. Entering into the spirit of the thing, they take their "preliminary canter" now, as Nolly expresses it, as though to get into proper training for the Chetwoodes' ball later on. And they all dance with Mona, and show a great desire that she shall not be found wanting when called upon by the rank, beauty, and fashion of Lauderdale to trip it on the "light fantastic toe."

Even Jack Rodney comes out of himself, and, conquering his habitual laziness, takes her in hand, and, as being the best dancer present, par excellence, teaches and tutors, and encourages her until Doatie cries "enough," and protests with pathos she will have no more of it, as she is not going to be cut out by Mona at all events in the dancing line.

So the day wears to evening; and the rain ceases, and the sullen clouds scud with a violent haste across the tired sky. Then the stars come out, first slowly, one by one, as though timid early guests at the great gathering, then with a brilliant rush, until all the sky, shows promise of a fairer morrow.

 
"Bespangled with those isles of light
So wildly, spiritually bright."
 

Mona, coming slowly downstairs, enters with lagging steps the library, where tea is awaiting them before they start.

She is gowned in a cream-colored satin that hangs in severe straight lines, and clings to her lissom rounded figure as dew clings to a flower. A few rows of tiny pearls clasp her neck. Upon her bosom some Christmas roses, pure and white as her own soul, lie softly; a few more nestle in her hair, which is drawn simply back and coiled in a loose knot behind her head; she wears no earrings and very few bracelets.