looking on with broad smiles. “Well done,” cried the master of the house clapping his hands; and then, as if this had been the signal, Rosamond concluded in a moment with a resounding chord, and the dancers stopped short. “Well, that was a pretty sight--are we to have no more of it?” Rowland said. “I think I can manage an old-world waltz,” said Evelyn, “for Rosamond no doubt would like a turn too.” “No, thanks--Eddy will never dance with me--and I like the piano best.” “Nonsense, nonsense,” said the master of the house. “Where’s Archie? Get up, ye lout! can ye see a pretty girl wanting a dance and not be on your feet in a moment? Come, Evelyn, let us have the old-world waltz, and see the young ones enjoy themselves.” “Come on,” said Eddy to his partner. “It will be as slow as a funeral, but its fine all the same. Come on, and never mind.” Rosamond stood up by the piano with a perfectly serious face. She turned half round towards Archie’s corner, who in an agony of incapacity and reluctance hesitated to make a step towards her. Rosamond did not care any more for the young man than if he had been a cabbage. He had no mystery or attraction for her, as she had for him, nor was her _amour propre_ affected by his hesitation. She said, scarcely looking at him from the pitch to which her head thrown high seemed to reach, above every one, “Are we to dance?” in those clear tones of unaffected indifference and disdain. She knew that she would be bumped against all the furniture, and expected to be thrown upon the rock of Mr. Rowland standing in the middle of the room where Eddy and Marion encircled, brushed with their wings, wound into the gyrations of their indefatigable whirl; but she was resigned, and ready for the sacrifice. To poor Archie it was a far more serious affair. He came slowly forward, slouching his shoulders and bending his head. “You were right in thinking I was not fit for it,” he said; “if it’s disagreeable to you, you will remember it’s not my fault.” She put out her hand without a word and placed it on his shoulder. I have read many rhapsodies about the manly character of a waltz, in which two people on the verge of love find themselves suddenly swept together into paradise; but the unhappy young man who cannot dance, who finds a fair partner suddenly, in spite of himself, thrust into his awkward arms, who does not know what to do with her, nor with his own unlucky fate, and the things which seem suddenly to spring up and put themselves into his way--no one, so far as I know, has ever found any interest in the sufferings of such an unlucky hero. He held himself as far apart from her as possible as he turned her slowly round, wondering if she hated him, if she would ever again look at him, afraid to glance at her lest he should read disgust in her face. A time of giddy anguish followed, how long or how short Archie could not tell. He supposed that Rosamond exerted herself to keep