"Sally, Sally, what are you doing? For pity's sake come here and lace me! I shall never be ready. What a time you are with Wyn!"

Jacqueline, in all the daintiness of white embroidered petticoat, satin-smooth shoulders, and deftly-arranged hair with a spray of lilies of the valley somewhere among its coils, hung over the balustrade in an agony of impatience.

"Wyn, Wyn, what are you keeping Sal for? She has been twenty minutes over your bodice."

A voice of agony from below responded.

"Tag has come off my lace."

"Oh!" A pause of consternation; then, encouragingly, "try a hair-pin."

"It's all right now. I have actually found my bodkin. I shan't be five minutes."

"Five minutes! My dear child, Osmond has actually gone for the cab!" cried Jac, in tones tragic enough to suit the most lamentable occasion.

"Jac, come here, and don't make such a fuss," said the calm voice of Hilda, as she emerged from her room, ready down to the minutest detail, fan, gloves, and wrap over her arm.

With a scream of joy at such unlooked-for relief, Jac darted into her room again, and her slender form was soon encased by her sister's deft fingers in its neatly-fitting fresh and captivating bodice.

"What a wonder your tags are not both off! They generally are," was Hilda's withering comment, as she performed her task.

"Yes, it is a wonder, isn't it?" returned Jacqueline, complacently. "Oh, there you are, Sal. I'm ready now, so you can go back to your beloved Wyn."

"You can't think 'ow nice Miss Wyn looks to-night," observed Sally, as she busied herself in collecting some of the scattered articles of wearing apparel which strewed the floor of Jacqueline's small chamber.

"I am so glad. I thought that dress would become her," said Hilda, in a pleased voice. "Oh, Jac, stand still, my beloved, one moment: there is Osmond back again."

"Very good; I am ready. Sally, where are my gloves? And my bracelet, and my fan, and my small brooch, and—oh, dear! Run and tell Wyn she must lend me a lace handkerchief and some elastic for my shoes. Do hurry, Sally, please, I quite forgot the elastic. Why didn't you remind me, Hilda? Oh, did you get it for me? You darling, what a blessing you are! There have I got everything? Oh, Sally, do I look as nice as Hilda?"

"You ain't so neat," observed Sally, with grim humor; "but neither of you looks bad, though I don't want to make you conceited."

"Are you girls coming?" shouted Osmond.

"Oh, yes; wait just a second, my dear boy. Is my front hair right, Hilda? Yours does go so beautifully to-night. You don't look like a governess, somehow." She threw a daring, tempting glance and laugh over her shoulder at the brilliant reflection in the mirror. "I wonder if I do," she said.

At the foot of the stairs stood Wyn, in her new white silk, with a little crescent of diamonds, which had belonged to their mother, in her hair.

"My dear girls, I am at peace," she remarked, gravely. "I stand at last inside a gown which hangs to perfection!"

"Oh, isn't it nice?" said Jac, with a deep sigh of longing. "Really, Wyn, you do look well; you pay for dressing. Why don't you give more attention to your clothes?"

"There's Osmond fidgetting downstairs, run!" cried Hilda, and the three flew off, pursued by Sally's warning cries.

"Miss Jac, Miss Jac, don't let that fresh skirt sweep the stair carpets! Miss 'Ilda, cover your 'ead over, you've got a cold, you know you 'ave! Miss Wyn, see that Mr. Osmond crosses his comforter over his chest, there's a dear!"

"Innisfallen. The Avenue," said Osmond to the cabman; and the four were really off at last.

"For how many dances are you engaged, Jac?" asked the brother, teazingly.

"Little boys," was the frigid rejoinder, "should ask no questions, and then they would hear no stories;" after which, silence reigned in the fourwheeler.

Every Londoner knows, or has heard of, the celebrated house of Mr. Miles, R.A. It is one of the show-houses of London, and views of its interior appear from time to time in the art magazines, with an accompanying article full of praise for and wonder at the wealth and taste which devised such an abode. With our nineteenth-century habit of writing biographies in the life-time of their subject, of forming societies to interpret the work of living poets, and publishing pamphlets to explain the method of living painters, why not also extol the upholstery of living academicians? It is surely more satisfactory that people should admire your taste and wonder at your income in your lifetime than after you have gone the way of all flesh. Nowadays one is nothing if not in print. What! Furnish at untold cost; have your carpets imported from the East, and your wall papers specially designed, merely that these facts should go about as a tradition, a varying statement bandied from mouth to mouth and credited at will?

The age is sceptical; it will not believe what it hears, it will not even believe documents of more than a certain age—the Gospels, for instance. But it will believe anything which it sees printed in a society journal, or a fashionable magazine. If your name be blazoned there, it is equivalent to having it graven with an iron pen, and lead in rock forever; on which account Mr. Miles did not object in the least to the appearance of delicately-executed engravings representing "Hall, and portion of staircase at Innisfallen, residence of H. Miles, Esq., R.A." "Interior of studio, looking west." "Drawing-room, and music-gallery, showing the great organ, &c., &c." He was wise in his generation, and thoroughly enjoyed the caressing and honors which accrued to him from this form of advertisement. Moreover, he was a kindly man, and much given to hospitality. Nothing pleased him better than to throw open his magnificent rooms to large assemblies of very various people on an occasion like the present.

An interesting theme for observation was presented by the extraordinary variety of toilettes worn by the guests of both sexes.

First there was the artistic section of the community, drawn from all classes of society. By an odd paradox, these were they whose costumes were the most aggressively inartistic of any. Dirt and slovenliness are neither of them picturesque, yet it would seem that this singular clique held that to cultivate both was the first duty of man. They seemed to be one and all anxious to impress upon the observer the fact that they had taken no trouble at all to prepare for this party. A few had washed their faces. None had gone to the length of arranging their hair. Another feature which all possessed in common was their inability to dance, though some of them tried. Perhaps their large boots and ill-fitting garments incapacitated them for the display of grace in motion. They leaped, shuffled and floundered, but they did not waltz. These were, of course, only the younger section. Nearly everyone of them had distinguished him or herself in their own particular line; which fact seems to argue that to give especial attention to one sort of observation is to destroy the faculty for observing anything else: a saddening theory, and one which makes one tremble for the value of Professor Huxley's judgment on all matters outside his own province. Be that as it may, the fact remains that this concourse of young people, who could all admire beauty, grace, and refinement in the canvasses of the old masters, yet were themselves so many living violations of every law of beauty, and kept their refinement strictly for internal use.

The moneyed clique was also much en Évidence. These were blazing with diamonds as to the women, commonplace and vacant as to the men. The latter seemed, in fact, to still further illustrate the theory of the evil of giving too close an attention to one thing. They were only faintly interested in what was going forward; they had no conversation unless they met a kindred spirit, who was willing to discuss the state of affairs east of Temple Bar. Their wives were for the most part handsome, and were all over-dressed, but this extreme was not so painful as that of the artists, because these clothes were as a rule well-made and composed of beautiful materials.

Then there was a large sprinkling of professional people—barristers, journalists, critics, savants, lady-doctors, strong-minded females, singers, reciters, actors. Also there were the great gems of the art world: academicians, who, having made their name, had promptly turned Philistine, with their wives and families, dressed like the rest of the world, built big houses, went into society, and painted pot-boilers; and, lastly, there was a fair sprinkling of the aristocracy: well-born people, not so handsome as the millionaires' wives, but with that subtle air of breeding which diamonds cannot give. All these were simply dressed, and unobtrusive in manner; and a stranger watching the Allonbys enter the room would have fearlessly classed them with these latter.

They all four looked what the Germans call "born." A certain way of carrying their heads distinguished them, and as they followed the announcement of their names, and shook hands with their hostess, more than one eager voice assailed the young men of the house with clamors for an introduction.

Mr. and Mrs. Miles were fond of the four orphans. They had known them for years, and watched with kindly interest the development of their fortunes. Wynifred's success had made her quite a small celebrity in the neighborhood, and she owed many introductions to the benevolent zeal of the academician's plain, homely wife.

"My dear," said Mrs. Miles, in a whisper, "I don't know when I've seen you look so nice."

This was a charming beginning. It raised Wynifred's spirits, which were already high. She had come that evening determined to enjoy herself. She intended to cast every remembrance of last summer to the winds. Claud Cranmer was to be forgotten—the one weakness in her life. She would wrench back her liberty by main force, and be free once more—free as on the hot June day when she had journeyed down to Devonshire, and found the slight trim figure waiting for her on the platform.

She knew plenty of people here to-night—people who were only too ready and anxious for her notice. When Wynifred had been working at the Woodstead Art School, before her novels began to pay, it had been said of her that she might have had the whole studio at her feet had she so chosen. She was an influence—a power. She had not been two minutes in the room before her ball-programme began to fill rapidly—too rapidly. She was too experienced a dancer not to make a point of reserving several dances "for contingencies."

"Don't introduce me to anyone else—please," she said to Arthur Miles, who was standing by her, inscribing his name on her card. "I shall have too many strangers on my hands, and I get so tired of strangers."

"There's North, the dramatic author, imploring me to introduce him—he wants to dramatise 'Cicely Montfort.' How that book has taken! I hope you are reaping substantial benefits, Miss Allonby?"

"Yes, pretty well, as times go, thank you," she answered, laughing a little as she remembered that her pretty gown had been earned by the industrious and popular "Cicely."

"I don't think it's much use my talking to him," she went on. "I have as good as promised to help Mr. Hollis dramatize it for the Corinthian."

"Then you and Mr. Hollis had better make haste, or North will have the start of you. He's the fastest writer I know, and I believe he has it already arranged in a prologue and three acts."

"Yes, there must be a prologue—that is the drawback," said Wyn, slowly. "But," with a sudden bright look, "you are making me talk 'shop,' Mr. Miles!"

"Am I? Very sorry. Here comes Dick Arden to take you off. I must go and find out if the beauty is here—she is fashionably late."

"The beauty? Has Mr. Miles a new beauty on view to-night?"

"I should just think he has, and no mistake about it this time. Have you not heard about her? She is a great heiress, and all London is to go mad over her. The pater is doing her picture in oils for the R.A. He says she is simply the most beautiful creature he has ever seen. She is coming to-night, under the escort of Lady Somebody-or-other. Hallo! There are the Ortons!"

"Where?" Wynifred turned her head swiftly. She knew them slightly, on account of the business relations between Osmond and Frederick. She watched with some interest as her brother, who was standing near the door, shook hands and entered into conversation with them. Ottilie was looking excessively handsome, in a black velvet dress, cut very low in the bodice, a profusion of jewels decorating her neck, arms, and head. She had grown somewhat thinner in the months she had lately spent abroad, but her color was as rich and vivid as ever. Wyn saw Osmond ask her to dance, and lead her away, and then Dick Arden, the pleasant looking young artist at her elbow, broke in with,

"When your meditation is quite finished, Miss Allonby, I am longing for a turn."

With a laughing apology she laid her hand on his arm, and followed him into the dancing-room.

The drawing-room at Innisfallen adjoined the studio, separated by enormous sliding-doors, and voluminous curtains of amethyst velvet. To-night the doors were folded back, the curtains looped in masses of dusky light and shade, so that the guests standing in the drawing-room could see the couples as they circled round.

Wyn began to enjoy herself. The floor was perfect, the band, as Hilda had prophesied, Willoughby's. She liked dancing, and she liked Dick Arden. Everyone knows that Woodstead is the suburb of London most famed for its dancing and its pretty girls. In Woodstead the dismal cry of "No dancing men!" is a thing unknown. On this particular night, the dancers were drawn from hundreds of neighborhoods, so that the waltzing was not so faultless as it was wont to be at the Town Hall; but Wyn knew whom to choose and whom to avoid, and her present partner left little to be desired.

Who could be sentimentally afflicted, she cried in her heart, with a good floor, a good band, and a good partner? The vivid memory of the weeks at Edge Combe seemed paler than it had ever been before. After all, it had only been an episode, and it was in the past now. Every day it receded further back; it was dying out, fading, disappearing.

The dancers flashed past. Osmond and Ottilie Orton, tall and commanding; Jacqueline and young Haldane, both talking as fast as they could, and laughing into each other's eyes; Hilda, quiet and queenly, with an adoring partner. It seemed a bright, hopeful world, a world full of people interested in other people. Was there no one in it who had a tender thought for her—for Wynifred? She did not want admiration, or fame, or notice, or favorable criticism. She was a woman, and she wanted love.

But no! This would not do. The stream of her reflections would carry her the wrong way. Forward must she look—never back, on past weakness and shortcoming. The music ceased with a long-drawn chord of strings. The waltz was over.

Wyn and her partner were at the lower end of the vast studio. As they turned to walk up the floor towards the archway, the girl caught sight of a head—a fair head thrown into relief against the dark background of the amethyst curtain. For a moment she felt sick, faint, and cold. Then she rallied, in a little burst of inward rage. What! Upset by a chance likeness?

They moved on. A crowd of intervening people shut out that suggestive head from view. Wyn unfurled her crimson fan, and smiled at Dick Arden.

"That was delightful," he was saying, warmly. "Won't you give me another? Do say you will. An extra—anything—only do give me one more."

The next instant she was face to face with Claud Cranmer.