We saw them come back from the Drawing-room between five and six, Helen with a brilliant colour in her cheeks; and at eight o'clock we went in. London parties, which begin when you ought to be in your first sleep, are not understood by us country people, and eight was the hour named in the Whitneys' invitations. Cattledon was screwed into a rich sea-green satin (somebody else's once), with a water-lily in her thin hair; and Miss Deveen wore all her diamonds. Sir John, out of his element and frightfully disconsolate, stood against the wall, his spectacles lodged on his old red nose. The thing was not in his line. Miss Deveen went up to shake hands. "Sir John, I am rather expecting a gentleman to call on me on business to-night," she said; "and have left word for him to step in and see me here. Will you forgive the liberty?" "I'm sure it's no liberty; I shall be glad to welcome him," replied Sir John, dismally. "There'll not be much here but stupid boys and girls. We shall get no whist to-night. The plague only knows who invented balls." It was a little odd that, next to ourselves, Mrs. Hughes should be the first to arrive. She was very pale and pretty, and her husband was a slender, quiet, delicate man, looking like a finished gentleman. Miss Deveen followed them with her eyes as they went up to Lady Whitney. "She does not look like it, does she, Johnny?" whispered Miss Deveen to me. No, I was quite sure she did not. Sophie Chalk was in white, with ivy leaves in her spangled hair, the sweetest fairy to look at ever seen out of a moonlight ring. Helen, in her Court dress and pearls, looked plain beside her. They stood talking together, not noticing that I and Tod were in the recess behind. Most of the people had come then, and the music was tuning up. The rooms looked well; the flowers, scattered about, had come up from Whitney Hall. Helen called to her brother. "We may as well begin dancing, William." "Of course we may," he answered. "I don't know what we have waited for. I must find a partner. Miss Chalk, may I have the honour of dancing the first dance with you?" That Miss Chalk's eyes went up to his with a flash of gratitude, and then down in modesty to the chalked floor, I knew as well as though they had been behind her head instead of before it. "Oh, thank you," said she, "I shall be so happy." And I no more dared glance at Tod than if he had been an uncaged crocodile. She had told _him_ she was engaged for it. But just as William was about to give her his arm, and some one came and took away Helen, Lady Whitney called him. He spoke with his mother for a minute or two and came back with a cloud on his face. "I am awfully sorry, Sophie. The mother says I must take out Lady Esther Starr this first time, old Starr's wife, you know, as my father's dancing days are over. Lady Esther is seven-and-thirty if she's a day," growled Bill, "and as big as a lighthouse. I'll have the second with you, Sophie."