thinks it necessary to be morose on the occasion, he takes it badly, and tells me, angrily, to moderate my transports, or people will say I have never been at any entertainment before—which if people did say it would be unusually near the truth.

Presently Marmaduke, seeing us, comes quickly up, and, having welcomed mother and Dora, offers me his arm with the air of a proprietor, and carries me away from my family. I feel as though treading on air, and am deliciously far from shyness of any description. Before we have gone very far, my conversational powers assert themselves.

"Marmaduke, don't you think I am looking very nice?" I say naively.

"Very, darling. You always look that."

This general praise disappoints me. Whatever an infatuated person may have chosen to consider me in the time past, I am satisfied that at the present moment I really am worthy of admiration.

"But you cannot have seen my dress," I persist; "it came all the way from London: and we all think it so pretty. Look at it, Marmaduke."

He turns his head willingly in my direction, but his gaze gets little farther than my face.

"It is charming," he says, with enthusiasm. "That pale green suits you tremendously."

"Pale-green!" and I am all faintest azure. I break into a merry laugh, and give him an imperceptible shake.

"Green, you ridiculous boy! Why, there is not a particle of green about me. I am nothing but pink and blue. Do look at me again, Marmaduke, or I shall die of chagrin."

"Well, it was the blue I meant," declares my lover, composedly. "Then, come with me to the other side, Phyllis: I want to introduce you to Lady Alicia Slate-Gore."

"Lady Alicia!" I gasp, awestruck. "Is—is the duke here?"

"No; he is in Scotland. Lady Alicia came by herself. She is an old friend of mine, darling, and I am very fond of her. I want you, therefore, to be particularly charming to her."

"How can you expect me to be that—under the circumstances?" I ask, lightly, glancing up at him from under my lashes with a sudden and altogether new touch of coquetry born of the hour and my gay attire. "How can I be amiable, when you tell me in that bare-faced fashion of your adoration for her? Of course I shall be desperately jealous and desperately disagreeable 

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