"See mamma! Isn't it just as I said?" whispered Jeannie, as she established herself beside her sister in a comfortable corner that commanded a view of the spacious hall and its gay, restless sea of figures. Sarah smiled at discovering her mother sandwiched between two portly dowagers; one in purple, the other in lavender silk; all three bobbing and waving in their earnest confabulations, in a style that presented a ludicrously marked resemblance to the gesticulations of a group of Muscovy ducks, on the margin of a mud-puddle, held by them in their capacity of a joint-stock company. "I see that Lucy has taken the floor," observed Philip. "She will not thank me for any devoirs I could render her for the next three hours. If they get up anything so humble as quadrilles, may I ask the pleasure of your company for the set?" "If you wish it--and my dress is not too grave in hue"-- "And too decorous in its make, you were about to add, I presume;" he finished the sentence bluntly. "It forms a refreshing contrast to the prevailing style around us." Lucy here flitted into sight, and her very bare arms and shoulders pointed her husband's strictures. A stool, brought into the room for the use of some child or invalid looker-on of the festivities, now stood empty under Sarah's chair, and Philip, espying it, seized upon and drew it forth. When seated, his mouth was nearly on a level with Sarah's ear. "This is pleasant!" he said. "We are quite as much isolated from the rest of mankind as if we were sitting among the heathery hillocks on Deal Beach. You do not love the visions of those tranquil sunny days as I do. You never allude to them voluntarily. Yet you have had less to convert your dreams into every-day actualities, tedious and prosaic, than I have. I stand in direful need of one of the old lectures, inculcating more charity, and less study of complex motives and biassed tendencies in the machine we call Man. Begin! I am at your mercy." "I have forgotten how to deliver them. I am out of practice." "That is not surprising. Your husband is behind the age he lives in--and so are you. You two would make Barnum's fortune, could he ever persuade the public of your idiosyncrasies." "What are you talking about?"