“Amusement!” exclaimed Buckhurst, turning suddenly towards Caroline; “do you imagine _that_ is my object?” Then approaching her, he said in a low voice, “It is a natural mistake for you to make, Miss Caroline Percy--for you--who know nothing of love. Amusement! It is not amusement that detains me--can you think I would stay for a ball, unless I expected to meet you there?” “Then I will not go,” said Caroline: “it would be coquetry to meet you there, when, as I thought, I had distinctly explained to you yesterday--” “Oh! don’t repeat that,” interrupted Buckhurst: “a lady is never bound to remember what she said yesterday--especially if it were a cruel sentence; I hope hereafter you will change your mind--let me live upon hope.” “I will never give any false hopes,” said Caroline; “and since I cannot add to your happiness, I will take care not to diminish it. I will not be the cause of your breaking your promise to my father: I will not be the means of tempting you to lower yourself in his opinion--I will not go to this ball.” Buckhurst smiled, went on with some commonplace raillery about cruelty, and took his leave, fancying that Caroline could not be in earnest in her threat, as he called it.--As his disobedience would have the excuse of _love_, he thought he might venture to transgress the letter of the promise. When the time came, he went to the ball, almost certain that Caroline would break her resolution, as he knew that she had never yet been at a public assembly, and it was natural that one so sure of being admired would be anxious to be seen. His surprise and disappointment were great when no Caroline appeared. He asked Rosamond if her sister was not well? “Perfectly well.” “Then why is not she here?” “Don’t you recollect her telling you that she would not come?” “Yes: but I did not think she was in earnest.” “How little you know of Caroline,” replied Rosamond, “if you imagine that either in trifles, or in matters of consequence, _she_ would say one thing and do another.” “I feel,” said Buckhurst, colouring, “what that emphasis on _she_ means. But I did not think you would have reproached me so severely. _I thought_ my cousin Rosamond was my friend.” “So I am--but not a friend to your faults.” “Surely it is no great crime in a young man to like going to a ball better than going to the Temple! But I am really concerned,” continued Buckhurst, “that I have deprived Miss Caroline Percy of the pleasure of being here to-night--and this was to have been her first appearance in public--I am quite sorry.” “Caroline is not at all impatient to appear in public; and as to the pleasure of being at a ball, it costs her little to sacrifice that, or any pleasure of her own, for the advantage of others.” “When Miss Caroline Percy said something about my falling in her father’s opinion for such a trifle, I could not guess that she was serious.” “She does not,” replied Rosamond, “think it a trifle to break a promise.”