"Just the sort of civil answer you could not avoid, and yet when you saw me so evidently expecting a compliment, I wonder you were not clever enough to evade it. Well! since you are so very anxious, I suppose I must dance with you. Look at all these maids in their freshest and newest dresses, with pretty coquettish-looking lace caps, evidently prepared to join in the dance, and a row of the gamekeepers and grooms standing beside them, looking frightfully shy! Was there ever seen before so merry a ball, such laughter, such flowers, and such dresses! It is like a ballet at the opera therefore why should not I find partner for every dance myself?"

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"Nothing easier," replied Sir Allan, "I shall be a perfect St. Vitus to-night if you insist upon it, and administer moreover, all this evening, the soothing syrup of as many compliments and civilities as the case may seem to require."

"There are some persons, Sir Allan, whose utmost flatteries would be loathsome to me, but there are a very few from whom praise is acceptable, and you are one, therefore you shall be permitted to―to admire my dancing. As King Lear says, 'Pour on, I will endure !'"

Really, the excess of my wish to say something very polite keeps me silent!"

"Then I can wait," replied Lady Anne demurely. "You sometimes make yourself quite ingeniously dull, and now I seem talking to the church steeple, with a small chime! You are as bright as the sun should be, but is not!

I already feel the better for all the agreeable things I am going to hear, and all the exercise I am about to take in this reel; and after all, what harm can there be in a little quiet domestic confidential dancing like this, if it lead to no late hours or excess of any kind ?"

"David danced," said Sir Allan, "and we read in Scripture that there is a time to dance.""

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"It is quite a natural vent to one's exuberant spirits," said Lady Anne, rising eagerly. Pray observe old Macgregor's pirouettes ! It is a singular phenomenon in dancing, that the largest and heaviest men always spring the most buoyantly off the floor, and Macgregor looks like a barrel endowed with the activity of any cork springing from a bottle of champagne. That tall thin gardener beside him looks like a pair of insane tongs."

The dancing soon became fast and furious, very unlike the languid mechanical movements of a lowland ball-room. The company danced with heart and soul, eyes, hands, and fingers, all in a state of frantic activity, while the men cracked their fingers like castenets, uttering every now and then a short sharp shout, perfectly startling, to encourage their own exertions, flying from end to end of the room like human rockets.

The feet of the dancers seemed everywhere at once, or nowhere, as they became almost invisible often, from the rapidity of the performer's motions, springing, pirouetting, screeching, snapping their fingers, whirling each other round, and flinging

their limbs into inconceivable contortions. Still there was a certain degree of wild savage grace, united to all this marvellous animation, which could not but be admired; and while Beatrice laughed with juvenile hilarity at this curious scene, till the tears that sparkled in her eyes were glittering down her cheek, she felt pleased, as well as amused, by so extraordinary an exhibition. It had altogether a savage New Zealand aspect; but this was the old national dance, performed centuries ago in these very halls, and Beatrice watched with delight and wonder the careless gaiety of this animated party, so full of life and frolic.

"Miss Turton," exclaimed Lord Iona conscientiously, "you and I must beware of growing old and wise before our time!"

"No danger that either of us will be wise too soon," answered Miss Turton, affectedly fixing her eyes on the tips of her own white gloves; "your whole life, my Lord, is like a ballet at the Opera; but as for myself, I shall very soon take leave of all such tawdry ensnaring amusements as these."

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Yet, meanwhile, before you exchange one set of leading-strings for another, let us, like Seged, resolve to be happy. I see by that freezing smile, you feel very little reliance on my small stock of discretion, and would not think me a safe leader; but there may be worse, very much worse! If you go hand in hand with any one down to the depths of despair, let it be me, for I am either your best friend, or your worst enemy."

"You are the true Abbot of Unreason to-night,"

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said Beatrice smiling; "or perhaps the Lord of Misrule; at all events you are not the centre of gravity!" Imagine-but no; you can't imagine!-nobody can!--but only conceive what a world this would be if everybody would take my advice and live under my directions. I have a perfect genius for happiness, and if I were to take the reins "

Pray do by all means," said Beatrice laughing; "here is Lady Anne wishing it, I wish it, and everybody wishes it."

"Oh! if you and everybody do, that settles the point. Then, here I am appointed by general acclamation, or at least by a minority of two, adviser-general to the present company."

“Yes, with a salary of nothing per annum and perquisites," added Beatrice. "You are now president of our little republic, and I suppose, like Louis Napoleon, your destiny must be fulfilled."

"Well! hitherto my remarkable gift of wisdom has been of no more use to those around me than pearls to the sea; but now I shall dive into all the desperate mysteries of every heart and mind. I shall be thoughtful for others, though thoughtless for myself. The very glance of my eye shall be an open sesame to those who would close th door of their minds against me. I read the real thoughts, and am not to be deceived by a ringing laugh, a rallying scold, a saucy answer, a gay imitation of love or anger, nor even by kind words. I shall penetrate into the Bluebeard's closet of your inmost thoughts, and set them all to rights. As you say, Miss Turton".

"Excuse me, my Lord, I have said nothing: therefore, whatever you are going to say is your own," interrupted Miss Turton, laughing. “I know you of old, always inflicting fifty thousand torments on me, attributing the strangest sentiments to me, and making people believe all you say of me."

"My portraits are all correct! Who would believe that your features could have executed such a frown, Miss Turton? You have put me in the corner now. I shall soon be in the house of correction as an imposter, but do I deserve it?” replied Lord Iona, raising up a fan between them in pretended terror, but glancing over it with a look of good-humoured malice. "You have found me out to be only a Bristol stone, when I am passing for a diamond. I must really get you mesmerized, Miss Turton. Father Eustace says his proselytes must believe this marble chimney-piece to be brass, if he desires you; but that is nothing to the influence I should gain over you all by means of biology. Father Eustace certainly understands the full use of that extraordinary art, and a very black art it might become in skilful hands. Girls in the convent, at Norwood, are put sometimes for eight days into a solitary room, where they must gaze, without ceasing, at a white-washed wall. If that does not make them go totally blind, it at least blinds their understandings, for if Dr. Darling, by making me stare for an hour at a white shilling, can make me forget my own name, and believe the key in my hand is red-hot, why,