"There seems to be only George Maclean," she had sighed in a dismal way. She was quite different from Elma, who continually dreamed of a duke. George Maclean would do very well for Mabel, only, as Jean complained, "George Maclean is a gentleman and all that kind of thing, but he has no prospects." So they rather disposed of George Maclean, for immediate purposes at least. Then came Mr. Meredith. After that, in the language of the Leightons, it was all up with Mabel. She would simply have to get engaged and married to Mr. Meredith. Mr. Meredith was of middle height, with rather a square, fair face, and a short cut-away dark moustache. He spoke in a bright concise sort of way, and darted very quick glances at people when addressing them. He came in with the Gardiners, and after shaking hands with Mrs. Leighton he darted several quick glances round the room, and then asked abruptly of Lucy Gardiner "Who was the tall girl in white?" Here was the point where the fortunes of the Leighton girls became at last crystallized, concrete. It is all very well to dream, but it is much pleasanter to be sure that something is really about to happen. None of this undercurrent was noticeable, however, in the general behaviour of that imaginative four. They began the evening in a dignified way with music. Every one either sang or played. Jean in her usual hearty fashion dashed through a "party piece." Even Elma was obliged to play the Boccherini Minuet, which she did with the usual nervous blunders. As Dr. Harry placed the music ready for her, she whispered to him, "Whenever I lift my heels off the floor, my knees knock against each other." "Keep your heels down," said Dr. Harry with the immobile air of a commanding officer. Elma found the piano pedals, and in the fine desire to follow out Dr. Harry’s instructions played Boccherini with both pedals down throughout. "How you do improve, Elma!" said May Turberville politely. And Elma looked at her with a mute despair in her eyes of which hours of laughter could not rid them. If only they knew, those people in that room, if only they knew what she wanted to play, the melodies that came singing in her heart when she was happy, the minor things when she was sad! All she could do when people were collected to stare at her was to play the Boccherini Minuet exceedingly badly. The weight of "evenings" had begun already to rest on Elma. Her undoubted gifts at learning and understanding music brought her into sharp prominence with her teachers and family, but never enabled Elma to exhibit herself with advantage on any real occasion.