"There are too many; we had better remain in the dining-room," she replied, with heightened colour. And Doreen, who, with all her bluntness, had plenty of tact, said no more. Every one accepted. But at the last moment Joanna excused herself, on the plea of indisposition. But Tristram Chaytor accompanied his brother. Waveney and Mollie were dressed alike that evening, in soft, ivory-coloured silk. Only Mollie's spray of flowers were pink, and Waveney wore dark red carnations. Thorold, who sat by her at dinner, noticed a diamond bangle on her arm. Waveney saw him looking at it. "It is a present from Lord Ralston," she said. "I am to be Mollie's bridesmaid, you know. Was it not good of him. I never had anything so lovely in my life before." Thorold murmured some response. Then he addressed his next neighbour. Waveney was dangerously attractive that evening; her dark eyes were bright with excitement and pleasure, and in her white dress she looked more like Undine than ever. The conversation during dinner turned upon long engagements. It was Gwendoline who started the subject; a friend of hers, who had been engaged for eight years, had been married that very morning. Gwendoline brought down on herself a chorus of animadversion and censure from the gentlemen, for saying that she rather approved of long engagements, and a warm discussion followed. The gentlemen took one side of the argument, and the ladies the other; but Gwen stuck tenaciously to her opinion. "Waiting never hurts any one," she said, oracularly. "Don't you remember Lady Betty Ingram, Moritz? Lady Betty was an ancestress of ours," she continued; "she lived when farmer George was king, and she was faithful to her love for more than twenty years." "Five-and-twenty years, was it not, Gwen?" And then, as most of the party begged to hear the story, Gwendoline narrated it in her own charming way. "Lady Betty had been for some time one of Queen Charlotte's ladies-in-waiting. But Court life was not to her taste; she was lively by nature, and she disliked all the etiquette and restraint, and she pined to be back with her parents in the old home. But before she left the Court she made the acquaintance of a certain Sir Bever Willoughby--at least, he was only Bever Willoughby then, the son of an impoverished baronet, and heir to heavily mortgaged estates. "Lady Betty was no beauty, but she was considered fascinating by most people. She was very witty, and she danced beautifully, and handsome Bever Willoughby lost his heart to her when he saw her walk through the minuet; for she pointed her toe so prettily and curtsied with such exquisite grace, that Willoughby was not proof against her charms. One evening when they were at Ranelagh, and Lady Betty looked more bewitching than ever in her little quilted satin hood, Willoughby suddenly addressed her in an agitated voice.