Maud felt all this very impressive and Sutton's society more and more delightful. Her enjoyment of it, however--by this time by no means small--began to be seriously qualified by an anxiety, increasingly present to her mind, as to her fitness for the dignified companionship thus thrust upon her. She felt passionately anxious to please Sutton, and more and more distrustful of her power to do so. He was good, noble, chivalrous, everything that Felicia had said, and how hopelessly above herself! What must he think of one who was, as Miss Goodenough had often told her, a mere congeries of defects? True, he never seemed shocked or annoyed at anything she said, and professed to like the rides as much as she did; but might not this be from mere good-nature, or the charm of novelty, or the wish to oblige Felicia, or any transitory or accidental cause? Terrifying thought, if some day he should find her wanting, and banish her from his regards! Meanwhile, happy, happy mornings, and sweet, bright world, in which such pleasure can be found, even if haunted by a doubt as to whether it is really ours or not! CHAPTER IX. THE FIRST BALL. Il est amiable, car on se sent toujours en danger avec lui. Before Maud had been many weeks with the Vernons there was a Garrison Ball, and at this it was fated that she should make her first public appearance in Dustypore society. That night was certainly the most eventful and exciting one that she had ever passed. To wake and find one's self famous is no doubt an agreeable sensation; but to put on for the first time in one's life a lovely ball-dress, bright, cloudlike, ambrosial--to be suddenly elevated to a pinnacle to receive the homage of mankind--to exercise a pleasant little capricious tyranny in the selection of partners--to be seized upon by one anxious adorer after another, all striving to please, each with a little flattering tale of his own--to read in a hundred eyes that one is very pretty--to find at last a partner who, from some mysterious reason, is not like other partners, but just perfection--to know that one's views about him are entirely reciprocated--it was, as Maud, on going to bed, acknowledged to herself with a sigh, which was half fatigue and half the utterance of an over-excited temperament, too much enjoyment for a single human soul to carry!