"_That’s_ because you’re so bad at expressing yourself, my dear," said Flossie, with a fine air of condescension. "It all comes out of shutting yourself up so much with that squeaking old violin of yours. I can’t think why you didn’t go in for the guitar--it’s such a pretty instrument to play, and it backs up a voice so well." "But I haven’t got a voice," cried Sarah, laughing. "Oh, _that_ doesn’t matter. Lady Lomys hasn’t a voice either, but she sings everywhere--everywhere." "Where did you hear her?" Sarah asked. "Oh, well, I haven’t heard her myself," Flossie admitted; "but then, that’s what _everybody_ says about Lady Lomys." "Oh! I see," murmured Sarah, not at all impressed by the mention of her ladyship’s accomplishments. It happened not very long after this that the Stubbses gave a ball--not just a dance, but a regular ball, with every available room in the house cleared and specially decorated, with the balconies covered in with awnings, and with every window and chimney-shelf, every fireplace and corner, filled with banks of flowers or stacks of exquisite palms or ferns. The entire house looked like fairyland, and Mrs. Stubbs went to and fro like a substantial fairy godmother, who was not quite sure how her charms were going to work. May came, with her elderly husband, from her great mansion in Palace Gardens, wearing a white velvet gown and such a blaze of diamonds that the mind refused to estimate their real value, and ran instinctively to paste. And Mrs. George, who was in town for "the season," came with her daughters, and languidly patronised everything but those diamonds, which she cheapened at once as being a little "off colour" and a "trifle overdone." Mrs. George herself had put on every single stone she was possessed of--even to making use of her husband’s breast-pin to fasten a stray end of lace on the bosom of her gown; but that, of course, had nothing really to do with her remarks on her niece’s taste--oh, no! Flossie had a new dress for the occasion, of course; and she had coaxed a beautiful diamond arrow out of her father on some pretext or other. Sarah thought she had never seen her look so charming before, and she told her so; it was with a smile and a conscious toss of her head that Flossie received the information, and looked at herself once more in the glass of her wardrobe. As she stood there, with Sarah, in a simple white muslin gown, watching her, a maid entered with a large white cardboard box. "For Miss Flossie," she said. The box contained a beautiful bouquet of rare and fragrant hothouse flowers, and attached to the stem was a small parcel. The parcel proved to contain a superb diamond bangle, and Flossie went proudly downstairs, wearing it upon her arm. And that night it crept out among the young ones in the Stubbs’ schoolroom that Flossie was going to be married. CHAPTER XV A FAMILY CATASTROPHE