"Yes; it was her that called last week," returns her amiable mother-in-law, laying an unmistakable stress upon the p.r.o.noun.

No one is listening, fortunately, to this gratuitous correction, or hot words might have been the result. Sir Nicholas and Geoffrey are laughing over some old story that has been brought to their recollection by this idle chattering about the Chetwoodes' ball; Jack and Violet are deep in some topic of their own.

"Well, she danced like a fairy, at all events, in spite of her size,"

says Sir Nicholas, alluding to the person the funny story had been about.

"You dance, of course," says Lady Rodney, turning to Mona, a little ashamed, perhaps, of her late rudeness.

"Oh, yes," says Mona, brightening even under this small touch of friendliness. "I'm very fond of it, too. I can get through all the steps without a mistake."

At this extraordinary speech, Lady Rodney stares in bewilderment.

"Ah! Walzes and polkas, you mean?" she says, in a puzzled tone.

"Eh?" says Mrs. Geoffrey.

"You can waltz?"

"Oh, no!" shaking her lovely head emphatically, with a smile. "It's country dances I mean. Up the middle and down again, and all that,"

moving her hand in a soft undulating way as though keeping it in accord with some music that is ringing in her brain. Then, sweetly, "Did _you_ ever dance a country dance?"

"Never!" says Lady Rodney, in a stony fashion. "I don't even know what you mean."

"No?" arching her brows, and looking really sorry for her. "What a pity!

They all come quite naturally to me. I don't remember ever being taught them. The music seemed to inspire me, and I really dance them very well.

Don't I Geoff?"

"I never saw your equal," says Geoffrey, who, with Sir Nicholas, has been listening to the last half of the conversation, and who is plainly suppressing a strong desire to laugh.

"Do you remember the evening you taught me the country dance that I said was like an old-fashioned minuet? And what an apt pupil I proved! I really think I could dance it now. By the by, my mother never saw one danced. She"--apologetically--"has not been out much. Let us go through one now for her benefit."

"Yes, let us," says Mona, gayly.

"Pray do not give yourselves so much trouble on my account," says Lady Rodney, with intense but subdued indignation.

"It won't trouble us, not a _bit_," says Mrs. Geoffrey, rising with alacrity. "I shall love it, the floor is so nice and slippery. Can any one whistle?"

At this Sir Nicholas gives way and laughs out loud, whereon Mona laughs too, though she reddens slightly, and says, "Well, of course the piano will do, though the fiddle is best of all."

"Violet, play us something," says Geoffrey, who has quite entered into the spirit of the thing, and who doesn't mind his mothers "horrors" in the least, but remembers how sweet Mona used to look when going slowly and with that quaint solemn dignity of hers "through her steps."

"I shall be charmed," says Violet; "but what is a country dance? Will 'Sir Roger' do?"

"No. Play anything monotonous, that is slow and dignified besides, and it will answer; in fact, anything at all," says Geoffrey, largely, at which Violet smiles and seats herself at the piano.

"Well, just wait till I tuck up the tail of my gown," says Mrs.

Geoffrey, airily flinging her pale-blue skirt over her white bare arm.

"You may as well call it a train; people like it better," says Geoffrey.

"I'm sure I don't know why, but perhaps it sounds better."

"There can be scarcely any question about that," says Lady Rodney, unwilling to let any occasion pa.s.s that may permit a slap at Mona.

"Yet the Princess D---- always calls her train a 'tail,'" says Violet, turning on her piano-stool to make this remark, which is balm to Mona's soul: after which she once more concentrates her thoughts on the instrument before her, and plays some odd old-fashioned air that suits well the dance of which they have been speaking.

Then Geoffrey offers Mona his hand, and leads her to the centre of the polished floor. There they salute each other in a rather Grandisonian fashion, and then separate.

The light from the great pine fire streams over all the room, throwing a rich glow upon the scene, upon the girl's flushed and earnest face, and large happy eyes, and graceful rounded figure, betraying also the grace and poetry of her every movement.

She stands well back from Geoffrey, and then, without any of the foolish, unlovely bashfulness that degenerates so often into awkwardness in the young, begins her dance.

It is a very curious and obsolete, if singularly charming, performance, full of strange bows, and unexpected turnings, and curtseys dignified and deep.

As she advances and retreats, with her _svelte_ figure drawn to its fullest height, and her face eager and intent upon the business in hand, and with her whole heart thrown apparently into the successful accomplishment of her task, she is looking far lovelier than she herself is at all aware.

Even Lady Rodney for the moment has fallen a prey to her unpremeditated charms, and is leaning forward anxiously watching her. Jack and Sir Nicholas are enchanted.

The shadows close them in on every side. Only the firelight illumines the room, casting its most brilliant and ruddy rays upon its central figures, until they look like beings conjured up from the olden times, as they flit to and fro in the slow mysterious mazes of the dance.

Mona's waxen arms gleam like snow in the uncertain light. Each movement of hers is full of grace and _verve_. Her entire action is perfect.

"Her feet beneath her petticoat Like little mice, stole in and out, As if they feared the light.

And, oh! she dances such a way, No sun upon an Easter day Is half so fine a sight."

The music, soft and almost mournful, echoes through the room; the feet keep time upon the oaken floor; weird-like the two forms move through the settled gloom.

The door at the farthest end of the room has been opened, and two people who are as yet invisible stand upon the threshold, too surprised to advance, too enthralled, indeed, by the sight before them to do so.

Only as Mrs. Geoffrey makes her final curtesy, and Geoffrey, with a laugh, stoops forward to kiss her lips instead of her hand, as acknowledgment of her earnest and very sweet performance, thereby declaring the same to have come to a timely end, do the new-comers dare to show themselves.

"Oh, how pretty!" cries one of them from the shadow as though grieved the dance has come so quickly to an end "How lovely!"

At this voice every one starts! Mona, slipping her hand into Geoffrey's, draws him to one side; Lady Rodney rises from her sofa, and Sir Nicholas goes eagerly towards the door.

"You have come!" cries he, in a tone Mona has never heard before, and then--there is no mistake about the fact that he and the shadow have embraced each other heartily.

"Yes, we have indeed," says the same sweet voice again, which is the merriest and softest voice imaginable, "and in very good time too, as it seems. Nolly and I have been here for fully five minutes, and have been so delighted with what we have seen that we positively could not stir.

Dear Lady Rodney, how d'ye do?"

She is a very little girl, quite half a head shorter than Mona, and, now that one can see her more plainly as she stands on the hearthrug, something more than commonly pretty.

Her eyes are large and blue, with a shade of green in them; her lips are soft and mobile; her whole expression is _debonnaire_, yet full of tenderness. She is brightness itself; each inward thought, be it of grief or gladness, makes itself outwardly known in the constant changes of her face. Her hair is cut above her forehead, and is quite golden, yet perhaps it is a degree darker than the ordinary hair we hear described as yellow. To me, to think of Dorothy Darling's head is always to remind myself of that line in Milton's "Comus," where he speaks of

"The loose train of thy amber-drooping hair."

She is very sweet to look at, and attractive and lovable.

"Her angel's face As the great eye of heaven shined bright, And made a sunshine in the shady place."