What was he to do with her hand when he got it? Not shake it and let it drop, like an ordinary Englishman. He had not been bred in that way. He bowed over it and kissed it before Lilias knew. He would have kissed her slipper had he dared, but that would have been an unusual homage, whereas this was the most natural, the most simple salutation in the world. It took Lilias altogether by surprise. No lip of man had ever touched her hand before. Her fair face turned crimson. She could not have been more astonished had he kissed her cheek, though the astonishment would have been of a different kind. She stood bewildered when this wonderful thing had happened, looking at her hand almost with alarm, as if the mark would show. She was ready to say, "It was not my fault," in instinctive self-defence. And yet she was not offended or displeased, but only startled. What would Margaret say? what would Jean say? or should she tell them? To end this self-discussion, she fled upstairs suddenly to her own room, and there considered the question, and the incident which was the strangest that ever had happened to her in all her life. CHAPTER XXVI. The night of the Stormont ball was as lovely and warm as a July night could be so far north. It was, it is scarcely necessary to say, full moon, country entertainers taking care to secure that great luminary to light their guests home, though in this case it was scarcely necessary, for no one intended that anything less than daylight should see them leave the scene of the festivities. The commotion was great in the old house, where every servant felt like one of the hosts, and the house was turned upside down from top to bottom with an enjoyment of the topsy-turvy which only a simple household unused to such incidents can know. Mrs. Stormont had spared no expense; there were lanterns hung among the trees, along the whole length of the avenue; there were lights in every window; even on the top of the old tower there was a blaze which threw a red reflection on the water, and was the admiration of the village. To see the ladies of Murkley cross in the great ferry-boat in their old-fashioned brougham, which was scarcely big enough to hold the three, and the Setons after them, wrapped up in cloaks and "clouds," was a sight that filled all Murkley with pleasure. "And they'll come back like that at three or four in the morning. Eh, bless me! but they maun be keen of pleasure to gang through a' that for't," the elderly sceptics said; but they were pleased to see the ladies in their fine dresses all the same. Miss Jean had a silver-grey satin, a soft, poetical dress that suited her; but Miss Margaret, notwithstanding the season, was in velvet, with point-lace that a queen might have envied. As for Lilias, it was universally acknowledged that the ball-dress which had come for her from London "just beat a'." Nothing like it had ever been imagined in Murkley. We have read in