A ball had early been proposed, but through the opposition or mal-influence of Mrs. Lindsay the scheme proved a failure; visions of the large dining-hall gay with floral decorations, the lines on the floor and the ball cloth smooth and tight as a drum-head, passed away, and a simple, half-impromptu carpet-dance was substituted; hired musicians were procured from the nearest town, and all the invited--even Hester--looked forward to a night of enjoyment; and, sooth to say, since her visit she had sedulously done all in her power to avoid meeting Roland alone--no difficult matter, so occupied was he with Annot; and then Earlshaugh was a large and rambling old house, intersected by tortuous passages without end, little landings and flights of steps in unexpected places, rooms opening curiously out of each other, and turret stairs up and down, the result of repairs and additions in past times: thus, while it was a glorious old house for flirtation, for appointments and partings, it was quite possible for two persons to reside therein and yet meet each other seldom, unless they wished it to be otherwise. It was impossible for the mind of Hester not to dwell on the time when Roland was--as she thought--her lover; of rambles and conversations and silences that were eloquent, and beatings of the heart in the bat-haunted gloaming, when the Esk gurgled over its stony bed and the crescent moon was in the violet-tinted sky. She thought she had got over it all, but she had not yet--she felt that she had not; but now Malcolm Skene was there, and she might if she chose show Roland the sceptre of power, and that the art of pleasing was still hers as ever. Roland had actually been more than once on the point of seeking some apologetic explanation with her; in his inner consciousness he felt that he owed it to her; but he shrank from it with a species of moral cowardice--he who had hacked his way out of the carnage of Kashgate, and ridden through the slaughter of other Egyptian fields; and though he had often rehearsed in his mind the _amende_ he owed her, how could he dare to approach it? 'It was a mistake of his at Merlwood thinking that he loved me,' Hester would ponder on the other hand; 'and he did not know then--still less did I--that it was a mistake; but I know it now! The only thing left for me is to school myself, if I can, to love him as a friend or sister, a cousin merely. But it is hard--hard after all; and for such an artificial girl as Annot!' Maude's carpet-dance--for the idea was hers--proved a great success, and many were present to whom, as they have no place in our story, we need not refer; but the music was excellent, and from an arched and partially curtained recess of the Red Drawing-room it swelled along the lofty ceilings and through the stately apartment, on the floor of which the dancers glided away to their hearts' content.