Margaret set out alone. It was a formidable ordeal for her to get herself into the house and up the staircase, and glad was she when she was safely landed in the dressing-room, though there was not a soul there whom she knew. Her dress was a pink silk that had been a part of her mother's trousseau; a good gown, though not at all the shade people were wearing now; but Mrs. Parke had made it over very carefully, and veiled it with white muslin. It had looked very nice to Margaret till it came in contact with the other girls' dresses. She hoped they would not look at it depreciatingly; and they did not,--they never looked at it at all, or at her either. She stood in the midst of the gayly greeting groups, less noticed than if she were a piece of furniture, on which at least a wrap or two might have been thrown. She found it easy enough, however, to get downstairs and into the reception-room in the stream, and up to Mrs. Underwood, who looked worried and anxious, said she was glad to see her, and it was a very cold evening; and then, as the waiting crowd pushed Margaret on, she could hear the hostess tell the next comer that she was glad to see him, and that it was a very warm evening. Margaret was softly but irresistibly urged on toward the door of the larger room where the dancing was to be; but that she had not the courage to enter alone, and coming across a single chair just at the entrance, she sat down in it and sat on for two hours without stirring. The men were bustling about to ask the girls who had already the most engagements; the girls were some of them looking out for possible partners, some on the watch for the men by whom they most wished to be asked to dance; but no one asked Margaret. The music struck up, and still she sat on unheeded. The loneliness of one in a crowd has often been dwelt upon, as greater than that of the wanderer in the desert; but all pictures of isolation are feeble compared to that of a solitary girl in a ballroom. Margaret's seat was in such a conspicuous position that it seemed as if all the couples who crushed past her in and out of the ballroom must take in the whole fact of her being neglected. There were a few older ladies in the room, but these sat together in another part of it, and talked among themselves without paying any heed to her. At first she hardly took in the situation in all its significance; but as dance after dance began and ended, she began to feel puzzled and frightened. Did the Underwoods mean to be rude to her, or was this the way people in society always behaved, and ought she to have known it all along? Ought she to feel more indignant with them, or ashamed of herself? If she could only know what the proper sentiment for the occasion might be, it would be some relief to feel miserable in the proper way. Miserable her condition must be, since she was the only girl in it.