One or two other carriages set down at the same time, and they entered the hall, a portion of a small crowd, so that Lady Maltby, a buxom, smiling lady of the good old type of the country baronet's wife, had only time to murmur a few words; and Drake passed on with Nell on his arm. As they went up the room, a dance started, and he drew Nell aside, and standing by her, looked round curiously and a trifle apprehensively. But there was no person whom he knew, and Sir William, who came up to them, had even got Drake's name wrongly. "Glad to see you, Miss Lorton. Dear, dear! how the young ones do grow! Glad to make your acquaintance, Mr. Verney Blake, and to congratulate you. I think I've met a relative of yours--an uncle, I fancy----" Drake's face grew expressionless in an instant. --"Sir Richard--or--was it Sir Joseph--Blake? He took the first for shorthorns in seventy-eight." Drake drew a sigh of relief. "No relation of mine, Sir William, I regret," he said. "No? Same name, too. Funny! But there are a good many Blakes. So you're going to run off with the belle of Shorne Mills, eh? Lucky fellow!" With a chuckle he ambled off to his wife, to be sent to some one else, and Drake bent to Nell. "Come!" was all he said, and he put his arm round her. The floor was good, the band from the garrison town knew its business, and Nell----Was he surprised that she should dance so well? Was not every ordinary movement of hers graceful? But the fact that she could dance like an angel, as he put it to himself, did not make his love for her any the less or his pride in her diminish, be certain. He himself had been the best dancer in his regiment, and this, his first waltz with the girl he adored, sent the blood spinning through his veins. "Aren't we in step rather--nicely?" she whispered, trying to speak casually, but failing utterly; for the joy that throbbed in her heart made it impossible for her to keep her voice steady. "Oh, Drake, I--I was afraid that I might not be able to dance, it is so long--ever so long--since----Why, this is my first real ball, and I am dancing with you! And how well you waltz! But you have danced so often--this is not your first ball!" He glanced at her with a pang of uneasiness, but her eyes shone up at him innocent of any other meaning than the simplest one, innocent of any doubt of him, any question of his past. "He would be a rank duffer who couldn't dance with you, Nell," he said. Her hand tightened on his with the faintest pressure, and she closed her eyes with a happy sigh. "If it could only go on forever!" was her thought; and she prayed that no other man might want her to dance, for a long time. She would have liked to sit out the dances she could not have with Drake, to sit and watch him. And she would not be jealous. Why should she be? Was he not her very own, her sweetheart, the man who loved her?