dance as often as I like to ask her, but at the cover-side she is so ashamed of me she shuns me like the plague; and then, of course, next ball it is, ’Dear Harry, do introduce me to Major Rattletrap,’ or some such soldier officer, ’I like the look of him so much.’—­’I just offered to,’ says I, ’but he didn’t seem to rise; said his card was full.  Seems sweet on that girl in pink, with black eyes.’  That’s a school friend of Kate’s, whom she is mortal jealous of.”

“As if she believed a word of it!”

“Oh, didn’t she, though!  She bit her lip, and looked shut up.  I have great moral influence over Kate that way.”

“There’s a grand iceberg!” cried Bluebell, after an amused pause, in which she had been trying to picture Cousin Kate:  “What a strange shape; it must be hundreds of feet high.  How cold it makes the air, though.”

“And you are shivering; I’ll run and fetch another rug.  It is warmer by the funnel, only there are a lot of fellows smoking there.”

“But, Mr. Dutton,” said she, hesitatingly, “why don’t you join them?  You have given me all your warm things, and must be cold yourself.”

“I’ll go if you tell me to,” said the lieutenant, looking full into Bluebell’s eyes.  She was silent, and the long eye-lashes came into play while she considered.  She had promised Mrs. Rolleston not to flirt, but there had been no question of that hitherto.  Why should she throw away a little pleasant companionship when she was so lonely?  “I only spoke on your account.”  But she had flirting eyes, which said, only too plainly, “Go, if you can.”

“I don’t think any one could feel cold near you,” he whispered,—­and then they both blushed.  A minute after he ran off for the rug, and Bluebell was left—­to repent.  “Oh, dear!” thought she, with very hot cheeks, “we must not begin this sort of thing already, or there will be an end to all comfort—­and as if I could ever forget!”

She received the rug with matter-of-course indifference, and looked up at him with the serenity of a nun; the young lieutenant was quick to perceive the change.  He thought it wiser to follow suit, and they were at ease again, though each remembered the other’s blush.

“I came upon a very touching tableau in the saloon,” said he; “the bride was reluctantly pecking at some chicken, and that ass, Butler, feeding her with a fork.”

“Ah! those are your nationalities,” laughed Bluebell; “we don’t do such silly things in Canada.”

“No, you are very stiff and stand-offish there, I know; that is why you don’t require chaperones.”

“What are the duties of a chaperone in England, beyond sitting up against a wall all night, like an old barn-door hen?”

“But they mustn’t roost,” said Mr. Dutton; “they have to guard their charges from the insidious approaches of ineligible youths, and assist them to entwine in their meshes the sons of Mammon.”