"Now, Miss Darcy, you are driving me into a corner. I only said if I positively had to do the distasteful thing and there was no way out. I beg to inform you in the plainest language that there is a way out of your suggestion--that is, not to fall and break my leg, and it is the way I mean to adopt. But if such a thing did happen to me, I should certainly try to console myself--as yet I am not quite sure how--yes, I have thought of a method, but I do not think I had better tell you what it is." "He means he would have Kitty to sit beside him and talk to him," thought Georgiana. "I wonder what he would be like if he were ill? He would have just the same merry smile, I believe." Aloud she said: "I am not so strong-minded as you, Mr. Price, I'm afraid. I should never be able to think of any way of consoling myself for a broken leg." "I hope you will never have to endure anything one-twentieth a part disagreeable, Miss Darcy," her partner replied, dropping his gay manner for a moment. "Although it helped me to get through my examinations, even now I cannot think very kindly of it." "Were you--has it actually happened to you?" exclaimed Georgiana, with a horrified face; and she never felt less pleasure at the arrival of a new partner than at that moment. Most unwillingly she placed her arm in his to be led away, wanting far more to hear the history of William Price's misfortune; while the young man, full of concern at having startled her, walked a few steps beside her to say: "It is all right, Miss Darcy, because, you see, that guarantees that it will not happen again to-night." Bingley, who was her partner, asked the name of her companion, and Georgiana told what she knew of him, describing him as Kitty's friend. Bingley recollected having heard of him from Kitty, and pleased with his appearance, and always attracted by a new face, expressed a wish to know him, and Georgiana looked forward to making the introduction when her dances with Bingley should be over. This, however, was not to be. Kitty and Mr. Price were dancing together, and occasionally passed them in the set, when Georgiana could observe her friend's flushed cheek and air of radiant happiness; but at its conclusion they were swept away in a crowd, and Bingley and Georgiana, looking round for chairs, were accosted by Mr. Knightley, with the request to present Mr. and Mrs. Yates, who were anxious to know them. The name was unfamiliar to both, and so were the faces of the couple who approached--Mr. Yates with his usual aspect of complete self-satisfaction, and his wife, a woman of fashion, with a considerable share of good looks, but an expression of countenance from which weariness and impatience were never long absent.