“And here my poor Cate must go in her old murrey-coloured petticoat,” said my lady.

“But even thus, to one who looks at her and not at her attire, she outshines Mary Cavendish,” said the other.  That was, to my thinking, as flagrant hypocrisy as was ever heard, for if those two maids had been clad alike as beggars, Mary Cavendish would have carried off the palm, with no dissenting voice, though Cate Culpeper was fair enough to see, with her father’s grace of manner, and his harshness of feature softened by her rose-bloom of youth.

Catherine Cavendish was dancing as the others, but seemingly with no heart in it, whereas her sister was all glowing with delight in the merriment of it, and her sense of her own beauty, and the admiration of all about her, and smiling as if the whole world, and at life itself, with the innocent radiance of a child.

As I stood watching her, I felt a touch on my arm, and looked, and there stood Mistress Cicely Hyde, and her brown face was so puckered with wrath and jealousy that I scarcely knew her.  “Did not Mary’s grandmother send you to escort her home, Master Wingfield?” said she in a sharp whisper, and I stared at her in amazement.  “When the ball is over, Mistress Hyde,” I said.

“’Tis time the ball was over now,” said she. “’Tis folly to keep it up so late as this, and Mary hath not had a word for me since we came.”

“But why do you not dance yourself, Mistress Hyde?”

“I care not to dance,” said she pettishly, and with a glance of mingled wrath and admiration at Mary Cavendish that might have matched mine or her brother’s, and I marvelled deeply at the waywardness of a maid’s heart.  But then came Ralph Drake, who had not drunken very deeply, being only flushed, and somewhat lost to discrimination, and disposed to dance with another since he could not have his cousin Mary, and he and Cicely went away together, and presently, when the minuet was over and another dance on, I saw them advancing in time, but always Cicely had that eye of watchful injury upon Mary.

It was late when the ball was done, but Mary would have stayed it out had it not been for Catherine, who almost swooned in the middle of a dance and had to be revived with aromatic vinegar, and lie for a while in my Lady Culpeper’s bedchamber, with a black woman fanning her, until she was sufficiently recovered to go home.  Mary did not espy me until, returning from her sister’s side to order the sedan chairs, she jostled against me.  Then such a blush of delight and relief came over her face as made my heart stand still with rapture and something like fear.  “You here, you here, Harry?” she cried, and stammered and blushed again, and Sir Humphrey and Cicely, who were pressing up, looked at me jealously.

“I am here at your grandmother’s request, Mistress Mary,” I said.