It was wrong of her, perhaps, to feel so happy--she felt that deep in her consciousness; wrong, with all the trouble in the house, Falk gone in disgrace, her father unhappy, her mother so strange; but to-night she could not help herself. The excitement was spluttering and crackling all over the town, the wonderful week upon which the whole country was entering, the Ball, her own coming-out Ball, and the consciousness that He would be there, and, even though He did love another, would be sure to give her at least one dance; these things were all too strong for her--she was happy, happy, happy--her eyes danced, her toes danced, her very soul danced for sheer delirious joy. Had any one been behind her to look over her shoulder into the glass, he would have seen the reflection in that mirror of one of the prettiest children the wide world could show; especially childish she looked to-night with her dark hair piled high on her head, her eyes wide with wonder, her neck and shoulders so delicately white and soft. Behind her, on the bed, was the dress, on the dingy carpet a pair of shoes of silver tissue, the loveliest things she had ever had. They were reflected in the mirror, little blobs of silver, and as she saw them the colour mounted still higher in her cheeks. She had no right to them; she had not paid for them. They were the first things that she had ever, in all her life, bought on credit. Neither her father nor her mother knew anything about them, but she had seen them in Harriott's shop-window and had simply not been able to resist them. If, after all, she was to dance with Him, that made anything right. Were she sent to prison because she could not pay for them it would not matter. She had done the only possible thing. And so she looked into the mirror and saw the dark glitter in her hair and the red in her cheeks and the whiteness of her shoulders and the silver blobs of the little shoes, and she was happy--happy with an almost fearful ecstasy. * * * * * Mrs. Brandon also was in her bedroom. She was sitting on a high stiff- backed chair, staring in front of her. She had been sitting there now for a long time without making any movement at all. She might have been a dead woman. Her thin hands, with the sharply marked blue veins, were clasped tightly on her lap. She was feeding, feverishly, eagerly feeding upon the thought of Morris. She would see him that evening, they would talk together, dance together, their hands would burn as they touched; they would say very little to one another; they would long, agonize for one another, to be alone together, to be far, far away from everybody, and they would be desperately unhappy.