who had paid her such particular attention during the memorable galop.
She looked in vain. There were several of last night's partners who came
to the side of the carriage and asked for the ladies' health after the
fatigue of the dance, and descanted on their own freedom, or otherwise,
from weariness. Deleah, her face the colour of a wild rose, her loose
dark hair curling crisply in the frosty air, shouted greetings to her
mother as she flew past, a little erect, graceful figure keeping her
elegant poise with the ease of the young and fearless. Now and again she
was seen to be fleeing, laughing as she went, from the pursuit of a
skater who wished to make a circuit of the flooded meadow holding
Deleah's hand. The girl was at once a romp and shy. She laughed with
dancing eyes as she flew ahead; but captured, had a frightened, anxious
look, her eyes appealing to her mother as she passed in protest and for
protection.

"Deleah will be a flirt when she grows up," Bessie said, who knew that her
mother was regarding the pretty child with admiration.

"Do you think so, my dear? I hope not, Bessie."

"She will! And she wants looking after. I thought, for a girl not yet
'out,' she was very forward last night. Reggie thought so too."

"I'm afraid you put it into his head, Bessie."

"As if Reggie had not got ideas of his own! Without my even so much as
_hinting_ he said he supposed she knew she was pretty."

"Reggie isn't here to-day, Bessie."