"You mean old darling," the girl returned playfully, "I'll go down stairs and not think of you once more all night," and in another instant she was re-established below in all her dignity, while the pressure of her lips yet lingered in a sweet impression on Henry Rayne's cheek. In an hour from that time the quiet, vacant apartments of Mr. Rayne's house were crowded with a fashionable and merry throng. Young faces beamed with gladness as they glided under the "mistletoe" with their partners, to the strains of dreamy waltzes. The programmes were all filled by now, and the evening's pleasures fully started. Everyone raved about Honor, and with reason, it was quite amusing to see how demonstrative the majority of the young ladies present tried to be with her, intending that this lavish display should be interpreted by the rest as a mark of the familarity which existed between them and Henry Rayne's handsome _protégée_. Miss Sadie Reid, Miss Dash and Miss Mountainhead, and all last season's heroines were there, it is the best and worst feature of Ottawa society, that, like a circus, if you attend one fashionable entertainment, you have attended them all, the _belles_ of one ball are the _belles_ of another, and the wall-flowers of one are the wall-flowers of another. * * * * * "Honor, whose waltz is this?" said Vivian Standish, pausing before her and looking admiringly into her eyes. "Oh dear, I don't know," said Honor in assumed despair, "I've lost my programme and am thrown quite on the mercy and veracity of my gentlemen friends. I regret to say--if you say this is yours--I cant refuse it, for I've neither programme nor memory to prove the contrary." "I hope you may regain neither to-night, for I think, I must make you remember, you've promised me, all the other waltzes, to-night." "Indeed, I doubt, if even this is yours," retorted she, "I've given you one already." "It is a wonder you remember," he said, a little sadly. "Surely you do not regret it--any way this one is mine, and we are losing golden moments, all this while--come--" encircling her waist, and as the music made an appropriate _crescendo_, she heard him add in muffled enthusiasm, "My darling." After waltzing a delightful, ten minutes or so, Vivian very artfully stopped, at the exit which led to the suggestive little _boudoir_ outside, and stole away, with Honor on his arm, into a quiet recess, near the tall French window, from whence the moon-lit, snow-covered gardens were plainly visible, the gas-light inside was burning ever so low, a sweet sleepy sort of perfume filled the room, strains of a German waltz were creeping in twittering echoes into the little corner where this handsome couple had seated themselves, the critical moment had come. It was now, or never. CHAPTER XXXVI. But happy they, the happiest of their kind Whom gentle stars unite, and in one fate Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings blend --_Thomson _