My partner in the march was "Hughy" Bellmer, as the General calls him; I begin to know him well. He's harmless, with his drawl and his round pink face that shines with admiration. Deliciously he patronized the ball. "Aw, Miss Winship," he said, "too large, too public. People prefer to dawnce in their own houses."--The ball was at the Waldorf-Astoria.--"The smaller a dawnce is, the greater it is, don't ye see." "But aren't any great people here?" I asked demurely. "I am just a country mouse, and I've really counted on seeing one or two great people, Mr. Bellmer--besides you, of course." "The Charity Ball is--aw, y'know, Miss Winship, an institution," he explained, fairly strutting in his complacency at my deference; "and as an institution, not as a Society event, ye understand, it is patronized by the most prominent ladies in the city." "How good of them!" I cried, laughing. He was so funny! But he was useful, too; he knew about everybody. Some of the women I shall remember--Mrs. Sloane Schuyler, leader of the smallest and most exclusive of Society's many sets--a handsome woman with well-arched eyebrows; and Mrs. Fredericks, of the same group; sallow, with great black eyes, talking with tremendous animation; and Mrs. Terry--of the newly rich; Mr. Bellmer's aunt; dumpy, diamonded and disagreeable-looking. "But where are the famous beauties?" I asked eagerly. "Won't they dance, even for charity, except in their own houses?" Some of them were there; tall, pale, stylish girls, or women whose darkened eyes and faces mealy with powder told of a bitter fight with time. Why, I haven't seen a woman whom I thought beautiful since--since I became so. "Aw, Miss Winship, really, y'know, you have no rivals," said my partner. I hadn't supposed him clever enough to guess what I was thinking. "Oh, yes I have--one," I said; "isn't there somewhere here a real live Lord?" But just then we joined Meg, and it was she who pointed out to me "The Earl of Strathay--the Twelfth Earl of Strathay," in a whisper of comical respect and deference. He wasn't very impressive--just a thin, pale young fellow with a bulbous head, big above and small below; but I was glad to do Meg a service; for of course she wished to meet him, and of course Lord Strathay was presented to the beautiful Miss Winship and her chaperons. Then I danced with him. I felt as if I were amusing a nice boy; he hardly came to my shoulder. I asked him if he liked America. He wasn't too much of a boy to reply:-- "Like is a feeble word to voice one's impressions of the land of lovely women." And then he looked at me. Oh, he did admire me immensely, and I took quite a fancy to him in turn, though it seemed pathetic that such a poor little fellow--I don't believe he's twenty-one--should carry the weight of his title. I danced with his cousin, too, a Mr. Poultney; and wherever I went Strathay's eyes followed me wistfully.