Captain Chancellor looked at her again, this time with increasing interest and some perplexity. He could not make her out. She was not shy, certainly not the least awkward; but for the slightly fluctuating colour on her cheeks, he would have imagined her to be thoroughly at her ease, rather more so perhaps than he quite cared about in a girl of her tender years, for "she can't be more than sixteen," he said to himself, as he observed her silently, sitting there alone, gravely watching the dance which had now begun. It seemed unnatural that she should not join in it; he felt sorry for her--but yet--it was quite against his principles to risk making a spectacle of himself--he wished she would dance with some one else; he could judge of her powers in a moment then. But no one came near their corner--even Mrs Dalrymple seemed to have forgotten them both. Captain Chancellor was a kind-hearted man, the sort of man, too, to whom it came naturally to try to attract any woman with whom he might be thrown in contact. And then this girl was undoubtedly pretty, and with something out of the common about her. He began to feel himself getting good-tempered again. It was stupid work sulking in a corner on account of Roma; he had had plenty of experience of her freaks before now, much better show her he did not pay any attention to them. Just as he had reached this point in his meditations, a faint, an all but inaudible little sigh caught his ear. It carried the day. "Don't you find it rather wearisome to sit still, watching all this waltzing?" he said at last. "Though you don't care much about dancing, a turn or two would be a change, don't you think?" "Yes," the girl answered, raising her face to his, with a rather melancholy expression in her eyes. "Yes, I daresay it would be very nice; but no one has asked me to dance. I hardly know any one here, for it is almost the first time I have been out anywhere in this way." Her frankness somewhat embarrassed her companion. It is not often that young ladies calmly announce a dearth of partners as a reason for their sitting still, and Captain Chancellor hardly knew how to reply. Condolence, he feared, might seem impertinent. He took refuge, at last, in her extreme youth. "No one could think it possible you had been out much," he said gently. "At your age, many girls have never been out at all." She looked up quickly at this, smiling a little, as if about to say something, but stopped. "As for not knowing any one here, we both seem in the same predicament, for I am a perfect stranger too. If no one better offers, will you condescend to give me the next dance? This one is just ending." A bright, almost a grateful glance was his reward.