Frank Hemstead was expected on the evening train from the north,
so the conspirators would not have long to wait. To pass the brief
intervening time Lottie went to the piano and gave them some music
like herself, brilliant, dashing, off-hand, but devoid of sentiment
and feeling. Then she sprang up and began playing the maddest
pranks on languid Bel, and with Addie was soon engaged in a romp
with De Forrest and Harcourt, that would have amazed the most
festive Puritan that ever schooled or masked a frolicsome nature
under the sombre deportment required. The young men took their cue
from the ladies, and elegance and propriety were driven away in
shreds before the gale of their wild spirits. Poor Bel, buffeted
and helpless, half-enjoying, half-frightened, protested, cried,
and laughed at the tempest around her.

"I mean," said Lottie, panting after a desperate chase among the
furniture, "to have one more spree, like the topers before they
reform."

Though these velvety creatures with their habits of grace and elegance
could romp without roughness, and glide where others would tear
around, they could not keep their revel so quiet but that hurrying
steps were heard. Bel warned them, and, before Mrs. Marchmont could
enter, Lottie was playing a waltz, and the others appeared as if
they had been dancing. The lady of precedent smiled, whereas if
she had come a moment earlier she would have been horrified.