the close of a London season, when, jaded by small cares, and sickened
of hollow intimacies, even the coldest may well yearn for the tones of
affection--the excitement of an honest emotion.

Somehow or other it happened that Florence and Ernest, after the first
day or two, were constantly thrown together. She rode on horseback, and
Maltravers was by her side--they made excursions on the river, and they
sat on the same bench in the gliding pleasure-boat. In the evenings,
the younger guests, with the assistance of the neighbouring families,
often got up a dance in a temporary pavilion built out of the
dining-room. Ernest never danced. Florence did at first. But once, as
she was conversing with Maltravers, when a gay guardsman came to claim
her promised hand in the waltz, she seemed struck by a grave change in
Ernest's face.

"Do you never waltz?" she asked, while the guardsman was searching for a
corner wherein safely to deposit his hat.

"No," said he; "yet there is no impropriety in /my/ waltzing."

"And you mean that there is in mine?"

"Pardon me--I did not say so."

"But you think it."

"Nay, on consideration, I am glad, perhaps, that you do waltz."

"You are mysterious."