For the last year she had drooped into a Yorkshire rose, but to-night she glowed in full Lancastrian splendor. Her cheeks were flushed with carnation, her lips redder still, and her eyes flashing with a sense of untried power and latent consciousness of crescent beauty. She was like a young empress looking down upon a roomful of men destined to be her subjects, though as yet they knew it not. The girls looked up at her and instinctively fell to arranging their lovelocks, and wondering if they had not abandoned the mirror prematurely. The men looked up and straightway forgot themselves and their partners, or wondered only how soon they could civilly be rid of them. "That girl not a beauty!" whispered Nancy reproachfully to Polly. "Why, then, where's the use of being beautiful. Look at the men!" In truth, it was as if the company had seen a comet. All faces were turned upward, all eyes upon that figure which came slowly down the stair with as calm an assurance as if her life had been spent in courts. "This satellite," said Elizabeth, with amused emphasis on the word, and drawing the girl toward her as she spoke, "is Mistress Peggy Neville, Your Excellency." "I had never thought of her having a name," said the Governor, bowing low, "unless, indeed, it were Flora or Proserpine, or some of those goddesses who appeared now and then to man in old days to show him what goddesses were like. May I hope that Flora will tread the pavan with me later?" Peggy blushed rosier than ever and courtesied to the ground. The twanging of the fiddles was in her ears celestial music, the candles were the lights of paradise, and _this_ was life. "Good-evening, Sir William!" "Ah! Huntoon, I have not seen you since my return from England." "How did you leave affairs there?" "Badly enough. His Majesty is hard pressed. I urged upon him a temporary withdrawal to his dominions on this side of the water, and if things go much worse with him I believe he may consider of it." "Come, gentlemen," broke in Elizabeth, "the fiddles are tuned, and the young people cannot brook waiting while you settle the fate of the nation." In truth, to one little maid it did seem as though the dancing would never begin. What was the fun of having men struggle for the privilege of talking with her? Old ladies could talk. She could talk better at forty-eight than at eighteen; but to _dance_, to sway to the music, and feel the blood keeping time as it swept along; to promenade down the hall with all eyes fixed upon one; to wheel the gallants in the reel and feel the lingering pressure of fingers reluctant to let go their transient grasp; to feel the light of the candles reflected in one's eyes and the perfume of roses caught in her breath; to live and move and reign the princess of love,--this was the glorious privilege of youth and womanhood, the guerdon which kind Fate in atonement for many hard blows had flung at the feet of Peggy Neville.