“Trust me, Sir George,” replied Caroline, laughingly, and a young man at that instant addressing her by name, she bowed gracefully to the veteran, and turned towards him who spoke.

“Miss Hamilton, I claim your promise for this quadrille,” said Lord Henry D’Este.

“Good bye,” said Sir George.  “I shall claim you for my partner when I see you at home.”

“St. Eval dancing again.  Merciful powers! we certainly shall have the roof tumbling over our heads,” exclaimed Lord Henry, as he and Caroline found themselves vis a vis to the earl of whom he spoke.

“Why, is it so very extraordinary that a young man should dance?” demanded Caroline.

“A philosopher as he is, decidedly.  You do not know him, Miss Hamilton.  He travelled all over Europe, I believe, really for the sake of improvement, instead of enjoying all the fun he might have had; he stored his brain with all sorts of knowledge, collecting material and stealing legends to write a book.  I went with him part of the way, but became so tired of my companion, that I turned recreant and fled, to enjoy a more spirited excursion of my own.  I tell him, whenever I want a lecture on all subjects, I shall come to him.  I call him the Walking Cyclopaedia, and only fancy such a personage dancing a quadrille.  What lady can have the courage to turn over the leaves of the Cyclopaedia in a quadrille? let me see.  Oh, Lady Lucy Melville, our noble hostess’s daughter.  She pretends to be a bit of a blue, therefore they are not so ill-matched as I imagined; however, she is not very bad—­not a deep blue, only just tinged with celestial azure.  Sweet creature, how you will be edified before your lesson is over.  Look, Miss Hamilton, on the other side of the Cyclopaedia.  That good lady has been the last seven years dancing with all her might and main for a husband.  There is another, striving, by an air of elegant hauteur, to prove she is something very great, when really she is nothing at all.  There’s a girl just introduced, as our noble poet says.”

“Take care, take care, Lord Henry; you are treading on dangerous ground,” exclaimed Caroline, unable to prevent laughing at the comic manner in which her companion criticised the dancers.  “You forget that I too have only just been released, and that this is only my first glimpse of the world.”

“You do me injustice, Miss Hamilton.  I am too delightfully and refreshingly reminded of that truth to forget it for one instant.  You may have only just made your debut, but you have not been schooled and scolded, and frightened into propriety as that unfortunate girl has.  If she has smiled once too naturally, spoken one word too much, made one step wrong, or said sir, my lord, your lordship, once too often, she will have such a lecture to-morrow, she will never wish to go to a ball again.”

“Poor girl!” said Caroline, in a tone of genuine pity, which caused a smile from her partner.