'How do you know I wasn't,' gazing at her earnestly.

'I'm not absent,' and then Philippa seeing what might be implied,
blushes a rosy red, and rising says, 'We must go back now, I promised
Lord Helmdon this dance, and he'll never find me here. Ah! there he is.'

'Are you so anxious to dance with him?' asks Jimmy in a would-be
indifferent tone.

'Yes, of course,' she replies, 'I like him so much, don't you?'

'Oh, yes,' replies Dalrymple with equal indifference. And so the evening
wears on and Miss Seaton is congratulating herself at having eluded
Captain Harkness, when she suddenly finds him standing before her.

'Won't you give me a dance?' he says in his suave tone. 'I have been
trying to speak to you all the evening--'

'Have you?' she replies, and not knowing quite how to get out of it.
'You may have the next one if you like,' she says.

'May I really? Then I shall find you somewhere about here?'

Lippa nods, and her partner, an aged baronet, claims her and they go
through the intricacies of the lancers. Almost before the next dance has
begun, Harkness appears; he dances beautifully and knows it too, but it
is not long before he suggests a saunter in the garden.

Philippa consents, and forth they go into the cool night air. A hundred
tiny lamps have been placed among the bushes, which shed a subdued light