"And if it wouldn't do," she gasped, "why didn't you bring me the
other partners?"

"Because I didn't know any," I said; and this seemed to amuse them
both so much that I was afraid they would never get their breath.

She looked by and by at her dancing-card, and as soon as she could
wipe the tears from her eyes she said, "No; there is no other name
there"; and this seemed even a better joke than the other from the
way they joined in laughing at it.

"Well, now," I said, when they were quiet again, "this won't do, my
young friends. It's all very well for you, and you seem to like it;
but I am responsible for your having passed a proper evening under
my chaperonage, and something has got to be done to prove it." They
saw the reasonableness of this, and they immediately became sober.
"Kendricks," I asked, "can't you think of something?"

No, he said, he couldn't; and then he began to laugh again.

I applied to her in the same terms; but she only answered, "Oh,
don't ask ME," and she went off laughing too.

"Very well, then," I said; "I shall have to do something desperate,
and I shall expect you both to bear me out in it, and I don't want
any miserable subterfuges when it comes to the point with Mrs.
March. Will you let me have your dancing-card Miss Gage?" She
detached it, and handed it to me. "It's very fortunate that Mr.
Kendricks wrote his name for the first dance only, and didn't go on
and fill it up."