Two angry red spots, quite foreign to her usual complexion, burned on
Lady Louise's fair cheeks. She turned abruptly away and left the
gentlemen.

"Little Harrie is pretty enough to excuse an older man losing his
head," Lord Carteret answered; "but it would not suit Lady Kingsland's
book at all. The Hunsden is poorer than a church-mouse, and though of
one of our best old-country families, the pedigree bears no proportion
to my lady's pride. A duke's daughter, in her estimation, would be
none too good for her darling son."

Mr. Grosvenor smiled satirically.

"She is a wonderful woman--my lady--but I fancy she is matched at last.
If Kingsland sets his heart on this latest fancy, all the powers of
earth and Hades will not move him. Do you recollect that little affair
of Miss Kingsland and poor Douglas of the --th? My lady put a stop to
that, and he was shot, poor fellow, before Balaklava. But the son and
heir is quite another story. Apropos, I must ask little Mildred to
dance. _Adio_, Carteret!"

The ball whirled on--the hours went by like bright, swift flashes, and,
from the moment of the redowa, to Sir Everard Kingsland it was one
brief, intoxicating dream of delirium. My Lady Kingsland's maternal
frowns, my Lady Louise's imperial scorn--all were forgotten. She was a
madcap and a hoiden--a wild, hare-brained, fox-hunting Amazon--all that
was shocking and unwomanly, but, at the same time, all that was bright,
beautiful, entrancing, irresistible. His golden-haired ideal, with the
azure eyes and seraphic smile was forgotten, and this gray-eyed
enchantress, robed in white, crowned with ivy, dancing desperately the