She was incapable of what she called "a low view." She had often "frankly" told herself that she took a deep interest in Archie. She had put his initials against some of her favourite passages in her morocco manual. She prayed for him on his birthday, and sometimes, when she woke up and looked at her luminous cross at night. She believed that she had a great influence for good over him which it was her duty to use. She was sincere in her wish to proselytize, but the sincerity of an insincere nature is like the kernel of a deaf nut; a mere shred of undeveloped fibre. What Madeleine wished to believe became a reality to her. Gratification of a very common form of vanity was a religious duty. She wrote to Archie with a clear conscience, and, when he accepted, had a box of autumn hats down from London. CHAPTER XII. "Oh, Love's but a dance, Where Time plays the fiddle! See the couples advance,-- Oh, Love's but a dance! A whisper, a glance,-- 'Shall we twirl down the middle?' Oh, Love's but a dance, Where Time plays the fiddle!" AUSTIN DOBSON. It was the night of the fancy dress ball. The carriages were already at the door, and could be heard crunching round and round upon the gravel. Sir Henry, all yeomanry red and gold, was having the bursting hooks and eyes at his throat altered in his wife's room. Something had to be done to his belt, too. At last he went blushing downstairs before the cluster of maids with his sword under his arm. The guests, who had gone up to dress after an early dinner, were reappearing by degrees. Lord Hemsworth, in claret-coloured coat and long Georgian waistcoat and tie-wig, came down, handsome and quiet as usual, with his young sister, whose imagination had stopped short at cotton-wool snowflakes on a tulle skirt. An impecunious young man in a red hunt coat rushed in, hooted on the stairs by Mr. Lumley for having come without a wedding garment. Madeleine sailed down in Watteau costume. Two married ladies followed in Elizabethan ones. Presently Archie made his appearance, a dream of beauty in white satin from head to foot, as the Earl of Leicester, his curling hair, fair to whiteness, looking like the wig which it was not. Every one, men and women alike, turned to look at him; and Mr. Lumley, following in harlequin costume, was quite overlooked, until he turned a somersault, saying, "Here we are again!" whereat Sir Henry instantly lost a hook and eye in a cackle of admiration. "We ought to be starting," said Madeleine. "We are all down now." "Not quite all," said Mr. Lumley, sinking on one knee, as Di came in crowned and sceptred, in a green and silver gown edged with ermine. Lord Hemsworth drew in his breath. Madeleine's face fell. "Good gracious, Di!" she said, with a very thin laugh. "This is dressing up indeed!"