In spite of her previous visit, the Orange Room gave her a shock of
delight and wonder. The litter had vanished, the hangings were in
place; fresh orange-coloured curtains divided the dancing-floor from
the recess beneath the gallery, and this had been furnished as a
withdrawing-room, with rugs, settees, groups of green foliage plants,
and candles, the light of which shone through shades of yellow paper.
The prisoners, too, had adorned with varicoloured paperwork the
candelabra, girandoles and mirrors which drew twinkles from the long
waxed floor, and softened whatever might have been garish in the
decorations. Certainly the panels took a new beauty, a luminous
delicacy, in their artificial rays; and Dorothea, when, after much
greeting and hand-shaking, she joined one of the groups inspecting
them, felt a sort of proprietary pleasure in the praises she heard.

Had she known it, she too was looking her best tonight--in an old-
maidish fashion, be it understood. She wore a gown of ashen-grey
muslin, edged with swansdown, and tied with sash and shoulder-knots
of a flame-hued ribbon which had taken her fancy at Bath in the autumn.
Her sandal-shoes, stockings, gloves, cap--she had worn caps for six
or seven years now,--even her fan, were of the same ash-coloured grey.

Dorothea knew how to dress. She also knew how to dance. The music made
her heart beat faster, and she never entered a ball-room without a
sense of happy expectancy. Poor lady! she never left but she carried
home heart-sickness, weariness, and a discontent of which she purged
her soul, on her knees, before lying down to sleep. She had a contrite
spirit; she knew that her lot was a fortunate one; but she envied her
maid Polly her good looks at times. With Polly's face, she might have
dancing to her heart's content. Usually she dropped some tears on her