ladies had mostly stationed themselves, Elsie congratulated him very sweetly.
"I feel a particular and personal interest in Osman," she said, "since it was through him that I first made your acquaintance. But I have been so puzzled. I felt certain that he had no white mark on his forehead. I remember thinking that he looked quite uncanny in his blackness."
"You must have forgotten," said Blake quietly, and presently left her to go and talk to Mrs. Jem Hallett.
"I seem fated to receive your condolences on Mr. Blake's victories," said Frank Hallett. "He is always the triumphant hero."
He laughed as he spoke, but there was a shade of bitterness in his tone.
Elsie wore black and crimson that night. Lady Horace declared that people would think she did so on purpose, as a tribute to Blake, the winner, and tried to persuade her to put on an old white gown instead. But Elsie would not. "I did not know that they were Mr. Blake's colours," she answered. "And let people think what they like."
Dinner to-night was in a tent in the courtyard, for the dance was to he a more important affair than on the previous evening, and the woolshed was being prepared as a ballroom. Frank Hallett was very busy, when the ladies came out into the verandah, superintending the placing of Chinese lanterns, which were hung upon the bunya trees, and marked the way to the woolshed. Frank came up to Elsie. "Will you do something to please my mother? Will you let her see you in your ball dress? You know she never appears at this sort of thing."
"Of course I will, and I will come at once, or after dinner—whichever she likes best."
"Then will you come now? For the dear old lady goes to bed at nine o'clock, and we shall not have got over the speeches by then."
Elsie and he went out at the garden gate, and walked to old Mrs. Hallett's cottage, which was on the brow of the hill, overlooking the lagoon, not a stone's throw from the
