She laid her head down again in subdued joy and rest:  but the pause was broken by Frank’s return; and a moment after, in darted the Peri in her pink cashmere costume, with a glow transforming her usually colourless face.  “Dear, dear Frank, I’m so glad!” she cried, bestowing her kiss; while he cried in amazement, “Is it Rose?  Is there a fancy ball?”

“Only Aladdin’s Cave.  I’m just out of it; and while Jenny is keeping up games, and Edith is getting up a charade, I could dash in to see that Frank was all there, and more too.  The exam, is safe, eh?”

“I trust so,” said Frank; “the list will not come just yet; but I am told I am certain of a pass—­indeed, that I stand high as to numbers.”

“That’s noble!—­Now, Mrs. Poynsett, turn him out as soon as he has eaten his dinner.  We want any one who can keep up a respectable kind of a row.  I say, will you two do Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess?  You look just like it.”

“Must we go?” asked Frank, reluctantly; and there was something in the expression of his face, a little paler than usual, that reminded his mother that the young man had for the first time seen sudden and violent death that day, and that though his present gladness was so great, yet that he had gone through too much in body and mind for the revels of the evening not either to jar, or to produce a vehement reaction, if he were driven into them.  So she answered by pleading the eleven miles’ walk; and the queen of the sports was merciful, adding, “But I must be gone, or Terry will be getting up his favourite tableau of the wounded men of Clontarf, or Rothesay, or the Black Bull’s Head, or some equally pleasing little incident.”

“Is it going on well?” asked Mrs. Poynsett.

“Sweetly!  Couldn’t be better.  They have all amalgamated and are in the midst of the ‘old family coach,’ with Captain Duncombe telling the story.  He is quite up to the trick, and enjoys turning the tables on his ladies.”

“And Camilla?” asked Lenore, in a hesitating, anxious tone

“Oh! she’s gone in for it.  I think she is the springs!  I heard her ask where you were, and Charley told her; so you need not be afraid to stay in peace, if you have a turn that way.  Good-bye; you’d laugh to see how delighted people are to be let off the lecture.”  And she bent over Lenore with a parting kiss, full of significance of congratulation.

She returned, after changing her dress, to find a pretty fairy tableau, contrived by the Bowater sisters, in full progress, and delighting the children and the mothers.  Lady Vivian contrived to get a word with her as she returned.

“Beautifully managed, Lady Rosamond.  I tell Cecil she should enjoy a defeat by such strategy.”

“It is Mrs. Poynsett’s regular Christmas party,” said Rosamond, not deigning any other reply.

“I congratulate her on her skilful representatives,” said Lady Tyrrell.  “May I ask if we are to see the hero of the day?  No?  What! you would say better employed?  Poor children, we must let them alone to-night for their illusion, though I am sorry it should be deepened; it will be only the more pain by and by.”