“Why, I wonder you did not tell me you had this great friend living here, and make her come to see me!” said Margaret, in her honest way. “I didn’t think of it,” he said, somewhat constrainedly. “I didn’t suppose you’d care for it.” He turned, then, and called her attention to some especially pretty bit of decoration, and Mrs. Vere was not mentioned again. In a few minutes Mr. Leary came up to speak to Miss Trevennon, and, soon after, one or two other acquaintances appeared, and Margaret was importuned for dances. “I shall not dance this evening,” she said, forming the resolution suddenly. She had not thought of the matter before, but when the time came she found herself indisposed to dance. There were strong protests from the young gentlemen, but these her decided manner soon silenced, and when Mr. Leary offered his arm, to take her to look for a seat, she looked around for Decourcy and found that he was gone. For a long while after this, she had not time to think of her cousin. Scores of people were presented to her, by Mrs. Gaston and others, and the General whispered to her that his popularity with the young gentlemen this evening was something phenomenal. She went into the drawing-room and looked on for a while, and though she kept to her resolution she might have had two partners for every dance, if she had chosen. Most of the men whom she declined to dance with manifested an entire willingness to stop and talk instead, and throughout the evening she was so well attended, that Cousin Eugenia, who had heard with quaking of her resolution not to dance, admitted to herself, in the end, that it had given her young cousin a more distinguished appearance.