Audrey

Evelyn waved her fan. "I dance the minuet with Mr. Lee." Her tone was

still sweetly languid, her manner most indifferent. The thick and glossy

tress that, drawn forward, was to ripple over white neck and bosom was too

loosely curled. She regarded it in the mirror with an anxious frown, then

spoke of it to the hairdresser.

Haward, smiling, watched her with heavy-lidded eyes. "Mr. Lee is a

fortunate gentleman," he said. "I may gain the rose, perhaps, in the

country dance?"

"That is better," remarked the lady, surveying with satisfaction the

new-curled lock. "The country dance? For that Mr. Lightfoot hath my

promise."

"It seems that I am a laggard," said Haward.

The knocker sounded below. "I am at home, Chloe," announced the mistress;

and the slave, laying aside her work, slipped from the room.

Haward played with the trifles upon the dressing table. "Wherein have I

offended, Evelyn?" he asked, at last.

The lady arched her brows, and the action made her for the moment very

like her handsome father. "Why, there is no offense!" she cried. "An old

acquaintance, a family friend! I step a minuet with Mr. Lee; I stand up

for a country dance with Mr. Lightfoot; I wear pink instead of blue, and

have lost my liking for white roses,--what is there in all this that needs

such a question? Ah, you have broken my silver chain!"

"I am clumsy to-day!" he exclaimed. "A thousand pardons!" He let the

broken toy slip from his fingers to the polished surface of the table, and

forgot that it was there. "Since Colonel Byrd (I am sorry to learn) keeps

his room with a fit of the gout, may I--an old acquaintance, a family

friend--conduct you to the Palace to-night?"

The fan waved on. "Thank you, but I go in our coach, and need no escort."

The lady yawned, very delicately, behind her slender fingers; then dropped

the fan, and spoke with animation: "Ah, here is Mr. Lee! In a good hour,

sir! I saw the bracelet that you mended for Mistress Winston. Canst do as

much for my poor chain here? See! it and this silver heart have parted

company."

Mr. Lee kissed her hand, and took snuff with Mr. Haward; then, after an

ardent speech crammed with references to Vulcan and Venus, chains that

were not slight, hearts that were of softer substance, sat down beside

this kind and dazzling vision, and applied his clever fingers to the

problem in hand. He was a personable young gentleman, who had studied at

Oxford, and who, proudly conscious that his tragedy of Artaxerxes, then

reposing in the escritoire at home, much outmerited Haward's talked-of

comedy, felt no diffidence in the company of the elder fine gentleman. He

rattled on of this and that, and Evelyn listened kindly, with only the

curve of her cheek visible to the family friend. The silver heart was

restored to its chain; the lady smiled her thanks; the enamored youth

hitched his chair some inches nearer the fair whom he had obliged, and,

with his hand upon his heart, entered the realm of high-flown speech. The

gay curtains waved; the roses were sweet; black Chloe sewed and sewed; the

hairdresser's hands wove in and out, as though he were a wizard making

passes.