tions burst out on all sides, I alone holding my tongue, for as yet a party at Charteris is a thing heard of but never seen by me.
"It is even so, my brethren," continues Kate, "and the edict has gone forth that our quarterly, low-necked, manless, partnerless, full dress ball is to take place on Thursday week. But do not be down-hearted, my friends, about this impending festivity. There is an unusual and beautiful halo of novelty, for at it will probably be present—a man! None of your miserable old rectors, or half-penny hobbledehoys, but a downright well-dressed, presentable man. There is no knowing to whom he may throw his pocket-handkerchief; therefore my advice to all and sundry is, curl up your hair, starch up your skirts, put on your most ravishing ogle, your finest languish, and—every man for himself, and devil take the hindmost."
"Only he cannot dance with more than a quarter of us," says Laura Fielding, a languid beauty of the Lydia Languish type, who is ripe for flirtation, but doomed to bread and butter.
"I have thought of that," says Kate. "We will have a lottery with fifteen prizes, and whoever draws one shall pin it to the front of her dress, and walk up to Mr. Vasher, and making a curtsey, say, 'My dance, I think?' and lead him away."
"I wonder what he would be doing all that time?" says Belle Linden. "He does not look like a man who would be made to do anything he does not choose."
"So much the better," says Dora. "I don't fancy the coup d'œil of our assembled charms will have the same effect upon him that they had on that little man who came to our last with Mr. Russell and who gave one look at our hungry and awaiting ranks, and ran."
"Where did he go?" I ask, opening my eyes.
"Nobody knows. Of one thing only are we certain, he never came back."
"Perhaps Mr. Vasher will not come," says Kate. "Men like
