“You look so nice to-night, Doll,” said Ernest. She flushed with pleasure, and answered simply, “I am glad you think so.” “Yes, I do think so; you are really pretty.” “Nonsense, Ernest! Can’t you find some other butt to practise your compliments on? What is the good of wasting them on me? I am going to sit down.” “Really, Doll, I don’t know what has come to you lately, you have grown so cross.” She sighed as she answered, gently: “No more do I, Ernest. I did not mean to speak crossly, but you should not make fun of me. Ah, here come Miss Ceswick and Eva.” They had rejoined Florence and Jeremy. The two ladies were seated, while Ernest and Jeremy were standing, the former in front of them, the latter against the wall behind, for they were gathered at the topmost end of the long room. At Dorothy’s announcement both the lads bent forward to look down the room, and both the women fixed their eyes on Ernest’s face anxiously, expectantly, something as a criminal fixes his eyes on the foreman of a jury who is about to pronounce words that will one way or another affect all his life. “I don’t see them,” said Ernest carelessly. “O, here they come. _By George!_” [Illustration: “_By George!_”] Whatever these two women were looking for in his face, they had found it, and, to all appearance, it pleased them very little. Dorothy turned pale, and leaned back with a faint smile of resignation; she had expected it, that smile seemed to say; but the blood flamed like a danger-flag into Florence’s haughty features—there was no resignation there. And meanwhile Ernest was staring down the room, quite unaware of the little comedy that was going on around him; so was Jeremy, and so was every other man who was there to stare. And this was what they were staring at. Up the centre of the long room walked, or rather swept, Miss Ceswick, for even at her advanced age she moved like a queen, and at any other time her appearance would in itself have been sufficient to excite remark. But people were not looking at Miss Ceswick, but rather at the radiant creature who accompanied her, and whose stature dwarfed her, tall as she was. Eva Ceswick—for it was she—was dressed in white _soie de Chine,_ in the bosom of which was fixed a single rose. The dress was cut low, and her splendid neck and arms were entirely without ornament. In the masses of dark hair, which was coiled like a coronet round her head, there glistened a diamond star. Simple as was her costume, there was a grandeur about it that struck the whole room; but in truth it sprang from the almost perfect beauty of the woman who wore it. Any dress would have looked beautiful upon that noble form, that towered so high, and yet seemed to float up the room with the grace of a swan and sway like a willow in the wind. But her loveliness did not end there. From those dark eyes there shone a light that few men could look upon and forget, and yet there was nothing bold about it. It was like the light of a star.