"I could not help it, Aunt Edith," I began; but a new arrival took up her attention, and I was left to make my own reflections upon the scene before me. It took a few minutes for me to come to my senses sufficiently to look about, and see things reasonably. It was some time before I recognized Josephine among the many strange faces. She was not dancing, but, with an admiring crowd around her, stood at the other end of the room, dispensing her coquettish smiles with tact and judgment. Grace was dancing with a lazy sort of grace that became her. Her partner was a painfully shy, undeveloped college youth, of whom, I could see, she was making all manner of ridicule, judging from the contortions of merriment visible on the face of her _vis-à-vis_, Captain McGuffy, with whom she exchanged a whispered witticism every time they met. Phil, with a self-denying heroism I had not given him credit for, was doing the agreeable to every one, dancing with all the girls who didn't seem to be having a nice time, and doing the honors of the house to the gentlemen without a groan. An occasional smile from Josephine, and a few words of approval from Mrs. Churchill, seemed to be all the reward he asked. Many of the faces about me were familiar. Grace had pointed them out to me in the street, and I had occasionally met them in the hall; but, of all the crowd, only one was an acquaintance, and that very far from a familiar one. Josephine's most intimate and particular confidante, Miss Ella Wynkar, gave me a look in passing, that was not striking for its graciousness, and a little nod. I had seen her at dinner more than once, when she had dined with us, and gone to the opera under my aunt's chaperonage. I never could understand her intimacy with Josephine; I knew they were dying of jealousy of each other, and Josephine, for one, never omitted an opportunity of saying an ill-natured thing about her friend behind her friend's back; and her friend, I felt certain, was not any more scrupulous; notwithstanding, they were the most loving and tender of companions, and continually seeking each other's society. Josephine made visits with Ella, and Ella shopped with Josephine. Mrs. Churchill took Ella to the opera, and Mrs. Wynkar chaperoned Josephine to matinées and weddings. Ella was the whitest of blondes, and neither intellectually nor physically at all in Josephine's style; she had not a pretty or expressive feature in her face; a general look of whiteness and sweetness about her, being her sole attraction. She was very much below Josephine in intelligence, but was not destitute of a certain shrewdness of her own, which, with some little exertion, kept her up to her friend's level. She lacked Josephine's nice French tact and polish, and was very American and very New York in her rather "loud" style, and very high-colored mode of expressing herself. Josephine must have an intimate friend, however, and so, I suppose, the most advantageous and proper one was selected.