Margaret wondered how she should ever get her precious flowers safely upstairs and into the hall--the box was so big; but the moment the carriage stopped an obsequiously bowing servant helped her out, seized her load, ushered her up and into the cloak-room, and set down his burden with an impressiveness that seemed to strike even the chattering groups of girls. Mrs. Underwood was nowhere to be seen, and Margaret was glad to have time to adjust her dress carefully. She took out her flowers at last; but on turning to the glass for a last look, saw that one of the knots of ribbon on her bodice was half-unpinned, and stopped to lay her nosegay down, while she secured it more firmly. "Oh, don't!" cried a voice beside her; "don't, pray don't put them down"; and Margaret turned to meet the pretty girl, very pretty now, whose passing word at the last dance had been the only sign of notice she had received from one of her own sex. "You'll spoil them," she went on; "do let me take them while you pin on your bow." Margaret, surprised and grateful, yielded up her flowers, which the other took gingerly with the tips of her fingers, tossing her own large lace-edged bouquet of red rosebuds on to a chair. "You will spoil your own beautiful flowers," said Margaret. "Oh, mine are tough! And then--why, they are very nice, of course, but not anything to compare to yours"--handling them as if they were made of glass. Margaret, astonished, took them back with thanks, and wished a moment later, that she had asked this good-natured young person to let her go into the ballroom with her party. But she had already been swept off by a crowd of friends, throwing back a parting smile and nod, and Margaret, left alone, and rather nervous at finding how late it was getting, walked across the room to the little side door that led into the dancing hall, and peeped through. There sat Mrs. Underwood at the further end, having evidently forgotten her very existence; and she drew back with a renewed sensation of awkward uncertainty. "They must have cost fifty dollars at least," said the clear, crisp tones of Miss Kitty Chester, so near her that she started, and then perceived, by a heap of pink flounces on the floor, that the sofa against the wall of the ballroom, close by the door, was occupied, though by whom she could not see without putting her head completely out, and being seen in her turn. "One might really almost dance with little Smith for that," went on the speaker. "Ralph Underwood says he isn't anything so bad as he looks," said the gentler voice of Margaret's new acquaintance. "Good heavens! I should hope not; that would be a little too much," laughed Kitty. "He is very clever, I hear, and has very good manners, considering--and she seems such a thoroughly nice girl." "Why, Gladys, you are quite in earnest about it. But now, do you think that you could ever make up your mind to be Mrs. Alcibiades?"