custom that must have been responsible for many sore hearts and spoiled evenings, had gone out in Jane’s time. But it was the fashion, at what were called private dances, for any man to ask any girl he fancied to become his partner without previous introduction; at public balls the Master of the Ceremonies did the introducing. In Evelina’s time, girls must have had many an exciting evening, many an anguished moment when the wrong man asked the honour of their hand while the right man had not come forward! Evelina made a terrible mess of things at her first dance. She refused the ridiculous little fop who first approached her, and afterwards accepted the handsome and engaging Lord Orville, who, it must be confessed, is a far superior man to Miss Austen’s corresponding hero, Darcy. Evelina narrates her acceptance of him in a letter to her guardian— “Well, I bowed, and I am sure I coloured; for indeed I was frightened at the thoughts of dancing before so many people, all strangers, and, which was worse, with a stranger; however, that was unavoidable; for, though I looked round the room several times, I could not see one person that I knew. And so he took my hand and led me to join in the dance.” Of course the fop was not one to take this considered insult quietly, he approached when Evelina and Lord Orville were sitting out between the dances, and asked, “‘May I know to what accident I must attribute not having the honour of your hand?’ “‘Accident, sir,’ repeated I much astonished. “‘Yes, accident, madam,—for surely—I must take the liberty to observe—pardon me, madam,—it ought to be no common one—that should tempt a lady—so young a one too,—to be guilty of ill-manners.’ “A confused idea now for the first time entered my head, of something I had heard of the rules of an assembly, but I was never at one before—I have only danced at school—and so giddy and heedless I was, that I had not once considered the impropriety of refusing one partner, and afterwards accepting another. I was thunderstruck at the recollection.... “I afterwards told Mrs. Mirvan of my disasters, and she good-naturedly blamed herself for not having better instructed me, but she said she had taken it for granted that I must know such common customs.”