Toward the close of December the officers of the flag-ship gave a ball,
which was the great event of the season to the gay world of Nice.
Americans were naturally in the ascendant on an American frigate; and of
all the American girls present, Lilly Page was unquestionably the
prettiest. Exquisitely dressed in white lace, with bands of turquoises
on her neck and arms and in her hair, she had more partners than she
knew what to do with, more bouquets than she could well carry, and
compliments enough to turn any girl's head. Thrown off her guard by her
triumphs, she indulged a little vindictive feeling which had been
growing in her mind of late on account of what she chose to consider
certain derelictions of duty on the part of Lieutenant Worthington, and
treated him to a taste of neglect. She was engaged three deep when he
asked her to dance; she did not hear when he invited her to walk; she
turned a cold shoulder when he tried to talk, and seemed absorbed by the
other cavaliers, naval and otherwise, who crowded about her.

Piqued and surprised, Ned Worthington turned to Katy. She did not dance,
saying frankly that she did not know how and was too tall; and she was
rather simply dressed in a pearl-gray silk, which had been her best gown
the winter before in Burnet, with a bunch of red roses in the white lace
of the tucker, and another in her hand, both the gifts of little Amy;
but she looked pleasant and serene, and there was something about her
which somehow soothed his disturbed mind, as he offered her his arm for
a walk on the decks.

For a while they said little, and Katy was quite content to pace up and
down in silence, enjoying the really beautiful scene,--the moonlight on
the Bay, the deep wavering reflections of the dark hulls and slender
spars, the fairy effect of the colored lamps and lanterns, and the