away with a blush and a slight frown--"There is mockery on your lip,"
said she.

Before Maltravers could answer, dinner was announced, and a foreign
ambassador claimed the hand of Lady Florence. Maltravers saw a young
lady with gold oats in her very light hair, fall to his lot, and
descended to the dining-room, thinking more of Lady Florence Lascelles
than he had ever done before.

He happened to sit nearly opposite to the young mistress of the house
(Lord Saxingham, as the reader knows, was a widower and Lady Florence an
only child); and Maltravers was that day in one of those felicitous
moods in which our animal spirits search and carry up, as it were, to
the surface, our intellectual gifts and acquisitions. He conversed
generally and happily; but once, when he turned his eyes to appeal to
Lady Florence for her opinion on some point in discussion, he caught her
gaze fixed upon him with an expression that checked the current of his
gaiety, and cast him into a curious and bewildered reverie. In that
gaze there was earnest and cordial admiration; but it was mixed with so
much mournfulness, that the admiration lost its eloquence, and he who
noticed it was rather saddened than flattered.

After dinner, when Maltravers sought the drawing-rooms, he found them
filled with the customary snob of good society. In one corner he
discovered Castruccio Cesarini, playing on a guitar, slung across his
breast with a blue riband. The Italian sang well; many young ladies
were grouped round him, amongst others Florence Lascelles. Maltravers,
fond as he was of music, looked upon Castruccio's performance as a
disagreeable exhibition. He had a Quixotic idea of the dignity of
talent; and though himself of a musical science, and a melody of voice