As a rule partners retained one another all the evening, but little Mrs. Archfield knew no etiquette, and maybe her husband had pushed and pulled her into place a little more authoritatively than she quite approved, for she shook him off, and turning round to Peregrine exclaimed—­

“Now, I will dance with you!  You do leap and hop so high and trippingly!  Never mind her; she is only a parson’s niece!”

“Madam!” exclaimed Charles, in a tone of surprised displeasure; but she only nodded archly at him, and said, “I must dance with him; he can jump so high.”

“Let her have her way,” whispered Lucy, “she is but a child, and it will be better not to make a pother.”

He yielded, though with visible annoyance, asking Anne if she would put up with a poor deserted swain, and as he led her off muttering, “That fellow’s friskiness is like to be taken out of him at Oakwood.”

Meanwhile the small creature had taken possession of her chosen partner, who, so far as size went, was far better suited to her than any of the other men present.  They were dancing something original and unpremeditated, with twirls and springs, sweeps and bends, bounds and footings, just as the little lady’s fancy prompted, perhaps guided in some degree by her partner’s experience of national dances.  White and black, they figured about, she with floating sheeny hair and glistening robes, he trim and tight and jetty, like fairy and imp!  It was so droll and pretty that talkers and dancers alike paused to watch them in a strange fascination, till at last, quite breathless and pink as a moss rosebud, Alice dropped upon a chair near her husband.  He stood grim, stiff, and vexed, all the more because Peregrine had taken her fan and was using it so as to make it wave like butterfly’s wings, while poor Charles looked, as the Doctor whispered to his father, far more inclined to lay it about her ears.

Sir Philip laughed heartily, for both he and the Doctor had been so much entranced and amused as to be far more diverted at the lad’s discomfiture than scandalised at the bride’s escapade, which they viewed as child’s play.

Perhaps, however, he was somewhat comforted by her later observation, “He is as ugly as Old Nick, and looks like always laughing at you; but I wish you could dance like him, Mr. Archfield, only then you wouldn’t be my dear old great big husband, or so beautiful to look at.  Oh, yes, to be sure, he is nothing but a skipjack such as one makes out of a chicken bone!”

And Anne meanwhile was exclaiming to her mother, “Oh, madam! how could they do such a thing?  How could they make poor Charley marry that foolish ill-mannered little creature?”

“Hush, daughter, you must drop that childish name,” said Mrs. Woodford gravely.

Anne blushed.  “I forgot, madam, but I am so sorry for him.”

“There is no reason for uneasiness, my dear.  She is a mere child, and under such hands as Lady Archfield she is sure to improve.  It is far better that she should be so young, as it will be the more easy to mould her.”