The Honourable Misses Dymcox had given their nieces the most stringent instructions upon etiquette; above all, they were not to taste wine; but while Marie was answering a remark made by Lord Henry, one of the servants filled that faintly prismatic glass, like half a soap-bubble in its beauty, and from old habit Marie lifted the drinking vessel by her hand, tasted, found the clear sparkling wine delicious, and had sipped again and again. The effect was trifling, but it did remove some of her diffidence, and she found herself chatting willingly enough to her cavalier. "Oh yes; a very, very retired life. We spend most of our time in the schoolroom, and when we take walks it is in the gardens or in the park with our aunts, at times when none of the London people are down." "Have you been on the Continent?" "Oh no," replied Marie, "not since Mr Montaigne brought us over to the Palace?" "May I ask who is Mr Montaigne?" "He was a very old friend of poor mamma's." "Poor mamma?" said Lord Henry inquiringly. "Oh yes; poor mamma and papa died when we were very little girls, and we have been with our aunts ever since." Lord Henry sipped his wine, gazed sidewise at his beautiful companion, and sighed. He thought of Gertrude Millet, and let his eye rest from time to time upon her brother, vainly trying to trace a resemblance, and also that though Lady Millet had undoubtedly seemed pleased by his advances, Gertrude had been chilling, and Marie Dymcox was not. Possibly, too, as the old man sighed, he thought that he had no time to lose now that he had been thinking that he would marry, and he sighed again as if in regret of something he had lost, something he might have had, but had been too careless or indifferent to win. A close observer would have noticed that there were tears in his eyes just then. Lady Littletown was a close observer, and by the aid of her eyeglass she did notice it, and secretly hugged herself. "But you go out a good deal--to parties, to concerts, or balls?" "Oh no!" laughed Marie, and her white teeth showed beneath her coral lips, while Major Malpas, who was nearly opposite, looked at her intently from beneath his heavy eyelids, and softly stroked his moustache. "I was never at a party before." "And do you like it?" said Lord Henry, beaming upon her, as, with a secret kind of satisfaction, he quietly admired the animated countenance beside him. "Oh yes, yes," she said softly. "I can't help liking it very much." "Well," said Lord Henry, smiling in quite a pleased manner, "why should you help liking it?" "I don't know," she said thoughtfully; "only we are always so quiet at the Palace, and aunts have often said that too much gaiety was bad." "Too much, my dear child. Yes, certainly; but a little is very pleasurable, and innocent, and good."