The evening progressed; music, pretty women, gallant men, brilliant lights, flowers, a sumptuous supper, a fascinating and charming hostess, formed the sum of general happiness. The ball was spoken of as the most successful of the season. In an interval between the dances Mrs. Holdfast found herself alone with Frederick in a conservatory. She had a difficulty in fastening one of the buttons of her glove. Frederick offered his assistance; she held out her white arm; his fingers trembled as he clumsily essayed to fasten the button. "You seem agitated," she said to him, with a smile. "I have behaved to you like a brute," he muttered. "Don't think of the past," she said sweetly, "we commence from this night." "It will be the commencement of heaven or hell to me!" he said, in a voice almost indistinct, with contrition as she supposed. "My father was right in calling you an angel. When I reflect upon my conduct this morning I can't help thinking I must have been mad. To refuse to kiss a beautiful woman like you! Let me kiss you now, in token of my repentance." She offered him her cheek, and he seized her in his arms, and kissed her lips. "I love you! I love you!" he whispered, and before she could release herself he had kissed her a dozen times. "That will make amends for my rudeness this morning," he said, as he rushed from her presence. She scarcely knew what to think; she was bewildered by his strange behaviour, but she was too pure-minded to put any but an innocent construction upon it. Poor lady! she had had no experience of that kind of man in whose eyes a woman's good name is a thing to trifle with and destroy, and who afterwards exults in the misery he has brought upon an unsuspecting, confiding heart. She lived to learn the bitter lesson. Too soon did she learn it! Too soon did the horrible truth force itself upon her soul that her husband's son loved her, or professed to love her--and that he was using all his artifices to prevail upon her to accept him as her secret lover. At first she refused to credit it; she had read of such things, but had never believed they could exist. To the pure all things are pure, and so for a time she cast away the suspicion which intruded itself that the heart of this young man could harbour such treachery towards a father too ready to forgive the errors which stain a man's name with dishonour. Her position was most perplexing. Instead of absenting himself from home, Frederick was unremitting in his attendance upon her. When he came down to breakfast in the morning he kissed her, but never before his father. When he went out of the house he kissed her--but his father never saw the embrace. In private, when no one else was by, he called her "Lydia," or "dear Lydia"; when his father or strangers were present, he addressed her as Mrs. Holdfast. He was so subtle in his devices that he wove around her and himself a chain of secrecy which caused her the greatest misery. She was no match for him.