"My dear, dear Julian, I entreat you not. You should feel that it were fit that my brother should dance this evening with his wife--with Urith." "She can no more dance than a goose," answered Julian, bluntly. "That is true--I mean she cannot dance very well; but it is not seemly that she be left out altogether, and that he should be so much with you." "Why not? We are old friends." "Do you not feel, Julian, that it is unfitting? She--I mean Urith--must feel hurt." "She is hurt!" repeated Julian, with a thrill of triumph in her voice; but this Bessie did not notice. It never for a moment occurred to her that it could give exultation to Julian to know that she had pained another. "Indeed, you must consider," pursued Bessie. "The poor young thing has not had the chance of learning to dance, and Anthony is without much thought; he seeks his pleasure. Young men do not think, or do not understand the hearts of girls. I watched Urith, and I believe that every step you took trod on her heart." "It did!" Her tone shocked Bessie, who for a moment released her arm and looked in her face, but in the darkness could not see the expression. "Indeed it did," she continued; "for, as she could not dance, it seemed a slight to and forgetfulness of her that she was left to sit out, and Anthony amused himself with you and with others. He meant no harm, I know that very well; but, nevertheless, he hurt her much, and she bled with inward pain. She was shamed, and should not have been shamed before a great many people on her first appearance after her marriage, at a rout." "You should administer your exhortations, Bess, to Anthony. I have not the custody and responsibility of that wild, vixenish colt, Urith." "I cannot get a word with Anthony, and you, Julian, are dancing with him three times to any other partner's one." "Would you have him sit down at her side and twiddle his thumbs, like a disgraced child in a corner?" "I would have him and you think of the feelings of a young girl who is sad at heart," said Bessie, gravely. Julian's tone distressed her; a glimmer of the true condition of affairs entered her mind and filled it with horror and indignation. "Julian," she said, in a firmer tone, with less of appeal in it and more of command, "at one time I used to think that we were like to become sisters----" "What, by your taking Fox? It is not too late."