Here was one sensible boy at least, thought poor Miss Rycroft, as Sidney Heathfield, tall, slim, studiously correct, stood looking solemnly down upon her, asking for the next waltz. Little did Miss Rycroft dream of the pressure which had been put upon the youth by yonder matron, whose voice was now heard loud and lively on the other side of the lace curtains. Mrs. Mornington was talking to Allan. "How horribly late you are, Mr. Carew. You don't deserve to find one nice girl disengaged." "Even if I don't, I know one nice woman with whom I would as soon sit and talk common sense as dance with the prettiest girl in Matcham." "If you mean me," said Mrs. Mornington, "there will be no commonsense talk for you and me to-night. I have all these young men to keep in order. Now, Billy," suddenly attacking Mr. Walcott, who was talking mysteriously to a bosom friend about some one or something that was seven off, with capped hocks, but a splendid lepper, "Billy, haven't I told you that you were here to dance, not to talk stables? There's Miss Forlander, the girl from Torquay, who plays golf so well, sitting like a statue next Mrs. Paddington Brown." "Oh, Mrs. Mornington," groaned the youth, as he strolled off, "what a life you lead us! I hope you don't call this hospitality." "Am I not at least to be introduced to Miss Vincent, the heroine of the evening?" asked Allan. "The heroine of the evening is behaving very badly," said Mrs. Mornington. "I don't think I'll ever give a summer dance again. I wish it had rained cats and dogs. Look at the dancing-room, half empty. Those young people are all meandering about the garden, picking my finest roses, I dare say, just to tear them to pieces in the game of 'he loves me, loves me not.'" "What better use could be made of a garden and roses? As long as you have only the true lovers, and no Mephistopheles or Martha, your garden is another Eden. But I must insist upon being introduced to Miss Vincent before the evening is over." "I will do my best," said Mrs. Mornington, and then in a lower voice she told him that she had ordered her niece to keep a late number open for his name. "She is a very nice girl, and I think you are a nice young man, and I should like you to know each other," concluded the lady with her bluff straightforwardness. Mr. Mornington and an elderly stranger, with iron-grey hair and iron-grey moustache, came across the hall at this moment. "Ah, here is my brother!" cried Mrs. Mornington. "Robert, I want to introduce Mr. Carew to you. He is a new neighbour, but a great favourite of mine." Allan stopped in the hall for about a quarter of an hour talking to General Vincent and Mr. Mornington, and then he, too, was called to order by his hostess, and was marched into the dancing-room to be introduced to a Dresden-china young lady, pink and white and blue-eyed, like Saxony porcelain, who had been brought by somebody, and who was a stranger in the land.