"Come along, Nancy! let us have _one_ more scamper before we die!" "I am engaged to Mr. Musgrave," reply I, with a graceless and discontented curl of lip, and raising of nose. "All right!" says Bobby, philosophically, walking away; "I am sure I do not mind, only I had a fancy for having _one_ more spin with you." "So you shall!" cry I, impulsively, with a sharp thought of Hong-Kong, running after him, and putting his solid right arm round my waist. Away we go in mad haste. Like most sailors, Bobby dances well. I am nothing very wonderful, but I suit _him_. In many musicless waltzings of winter evenings, down the lobby at home, we have learned to fit each other's step exactly. At our first pausing to recover breath, I become sensible of a face behind me, of a fierce voice in my ear. "I had an idea, Lady Tempest, that this was _our_ dance!" "So it was!" reply I, cheerfully; "but you see I have cut you!" "So I perceive!" "Had not you better call Bobby out!" cry I, with a jeering laugh, tired of his eternal black looks. "You really are _too_ silly! I wish I had a looking-glass here to show you your face!" "Do you?" (very shortly). Repartee is never Frank's forte. This is all that he now finds with which to wither me. However, even if he had any thing more or more pungent to say, I should not hear him, for I am beginning to dance off again. "What a fool he is to care!" says Bobby, contemptuously; "after all, he is an ill-tempered beast! I suppose if one kicked him down-stairs it would put a stop to his marrying Barbara, would not it?" I laugh. "I suppose so." It is over now. The last long-drawn-out notes have ceased to occupy the air. As far as _we_ are concerned, the ball is over, for we have quitted it. We have at length removed the _gêne_ of our presence from the company, and have left them to polka and schottische their fill until the morning. We have reached our own part of the house. My cheeks are burning and throbbing with the quick, unwonted exercise. My brain is unpleasantly stirred: a hundred thoughts in a second run galloping through it. I leave the others in the warm-lit drawing-room, briskly talking and discussing the scene we have quitted, and slip away through the door, into a dark and empty adjacent anteroom, where the fire lies at death's door, low and dull, and the candles are unlighted. I draw the curtains, unbar the shutters, and, lifting the heavy sash, look out. A cold, still air, sharp and clear, at once greets my face with its frosty kisses. Below me, the great house-shadow projects in darkness, and beyond it lies a great and dazzling field of shining snow, asleep in the moonlight.