"Which is Miss Wamphrey?" said John. He looked in the other direction that he might not betray himself, and then looked again to see that the girl had put up her fan, and that (as he thought) the something she was expecting had happened. She had seen him. Her eyes had taken a roundness which they had not before, the alarm of expectation had gone, and a sort of panic had come in its place. He saw her (or thought he saw her) obliterate herself behind the larger form of the lady with whom she was for a moment--then look out again over her shoulder, as if standing on tiptoe. Of course, she must have expected, John thought to himself, all that was happening or was about to happen. She must have known she would meet him. She must have been prepared to be recognised. She must be now at the height of a great crisis of mind, wound up to face it out, hoping that perhaps he might have been less quick of observation, less certain of recollection than she was. "That's her," said Maxwell, with a wave of his hand towards the group, "playing keek-bo with somebody over Mrs Brydon's shoulder. Just like her saucy ways! You'll find Marion no country cousin, I can tell you, Percival. There's not one of your Edinburgh fine ladies more----Eh? think you have seen her before? I'll be bound you have seen her before! She's been spending the season, I tell you, in Edinburgh, and you that have your _entrées_ everywhere----" "Not so much as that," said John, with modesty; "and you must remember I have had all the fun cut off this year----" "Never mind, I am sure you must have met her. Come along, and compare your experiences. I think I'm a man of great magnanimity not to hold you off; but it's better to run the risk of trusting you," he added with a laugh, "than to give you the attraction of the forbidden." Somehow, however, their progress was slow through the little crowd--quite a little crowd, John felt, to one accustomed to the Assembly Rooms of Edinburgh. But somehow, everybody seemed to get in the way between himself and this lady. Had there not been a whisper sent out through the friendly ranks: "Oh, keep him off me! that man with his story about the stage-coach. I cannot abide these funny men with their stories." Young Duntrum, which had admired John quite long enough, was delighted to hear that so popular a girl as Marion Wamphrey did not want to hear the story which all the others had held their breath at. It was a victory, after all, for Duntrum over the invader in their midst. And accordingly they circled round him, and called attention to a hundred insignificant things.