"Nonsense! I am surprised at your thinking of such a thing. The idea of our going to a Commonstone ball on Easter Monday! Just fancy, my dear Jim, what it would be,--townspeople and excursionists from round about. No; I don't go in for being exclusive, goodness knows; but the Commonstone Easter ball is a rather more boisterous business than I can stand." "What nonsense!" rejoined the dragoon, a little staggered, all the same, by his mother's argument. "It will be great fun, and I don't suppose a bit worse than any other of the Commonstone balls; and we have always gone to them, you know." "Yes, but that's a very different thing from an Easter Monday ball. Of course you and any of the gentlemen of the party can go. You will have great fun, no doubt." "But," urged Jim, "we are a large party, and can keep to ourselves, you know. It is a good room; and here is Blanche, I know, dying for a galop. Are you not, my sister?" "No, indeed," said Blanche, responding bravely to her before-dinner tutoring; "I assure you I don't care about it in the least. I have no doubt mamma is right, and that the ball will be crowded with all sorts of disagreeable people." "You little traitress," said Jim, with a comical grin upon his countenance, "I did think I could count upon you; but you are as perfidious as a county elector in these days of the ballot-box." Poor Blanche coloured and bit her lip. She was conscious of gross tergiversation, of having ratted shamefully; for that merry party in the afternoon, as they stood in the camp of Rockcliffe overlooking Commonstone, had, one and all, vowed to foot it merrily in the town-hall on Easter Monday, and agreed that for real lovers of dancing a country ball beat a London one all to pieces. "Well, mother," rejoined Jim, with one of his queer smiles, "on your head be it if any harm comes to us; if you will allow your young braves to go out on the war-path without their natural protectors, you must not be surprised if some of them lose their scalps. Beauchamp, you are a devotee of the goddess, I know. You will of course form one of 'the lost children' who brave all the horde of excursionists for the honour of Todborough." "Thanks, no," replied Lionel. "I don't think I care about facing the barbarians at play." He was a good deal smitten with Blanche, and knew better than to run counter to his enslaver's pronounced opinion. "Then," exclaimed Jim, "like Curtius, I must leap into the gulf single-handed. Stop! hang it, I will exercise my military prerogative; yes, Braybrooke, I shall order you to accompany me, if it is only to witness the sacrifice." "Stay, Captain Bloxam," said Mrs. Sartoris, laughing. "Such devoted gallantry deserves encouragement; I won't see you fall into the hands of the Philistines without an effort at your preservation. You'll go, Tom, won't you?" she continued, appealing to her husband, "if Lady Mary can only find us transport."