“Think of me as a creature with too many faults of her own to presume to meddle with those of others,” replied Mary, smiling at her cousin’s perplexity.

“Well, if all good people were like you, I do believe I should become a saint myself.  If you are right, I must be wrong; but fifty years hence we shall settle that matter with spectacles on nose over our family Bibles.  In the meantime the business of the ball-room is much more pressing.  We really must decide upon something.  Will you choose your own style, or shall I leave it to Madame Trieur to do us up exactly alike?”

“You have only to choose for yourself, my dear cousin,” answered Mary.  “You know I have no interest in it—­at least not till I have received my mother’s permission.”

“I have told you already there is no chance of obtaining it.  I had a brouillerie with her on the subject before I came to you.”

“Then I entreat you will not say another word.  It is a thing of so little consequence, that I am quite vexed to think that my mother should have been disturbed about it.  Dear Lady Emily, if you love me, promise that you will not say another syllable on the subject.”

“And this is all the thanks I get for my trouble and vexation,” exclaimed Lady Emily, angrily; “but the truth is, I believe you think it would be a sin to go to a ball; and as for dancing—­oh, shocking!  That would be absolute —–.  I really can’t say the bad word you good people are so fond of using.”

“I understand your meaning,” answered Mary, laughing; “but, indeed, I have no such apprehensions.  On the contrary, I am very fond of dancing; so fond, that I have often taken Aunt Nicky for my partner in a Strathspey rather than sit still—­and, to confess my weakness, I should like very much to go to a ball.”

“Then you must and shall go to this one.  It is really a pity that you should have enraged Lady Juliana so much by that unfortunate church-going; but for that, I think she might have been managed; and even now, I should not despair, if you would, like a good girl, beg pardon for what is past, and promise never to do so any more.”

“Impossible!” replied Mary.  “You surely cannot be serious in supposing I would barter a positive duty for a trifling amusement?”

“Oh, hang duties! they are odious things.  And as for your amiable, dutiful, virtuous Goody Two-Shoes characters, I detest them.  They never would go down with me, even in the nursery, with all he attractions of a gold watch and coach and six.  They were ever my abhorrence, as every species of canting and hypocrisy still is—–­”

Then struck with a sense of her own violence and impetuosity, contrasted with her cousin’s meek unreproving manner, Lady Emily threw her arms round her, begging pardon, and assuring her she did not mean her.

“If you had,” said Mary, returning her embrace, “you would only have told me what I am in some respects.  Dull and childish, I know I am; for I am not the same creature I was at Lochmarlie”—­and a tear trembled in her eye as she spoke—­“and troublesome, I am sure, you have found me.”