And with the remark, he moved towards that part of the room where the two young ladies were standing.  Lizzy returned his salutations with a frank and easy grace, but Margaret drew herself up coldly, and replied to his remarks with brief formality.  Clinton remained with them only long enough to pass a few compliments, and then moved away and mingled with the crowd in another part of the large saloon, where the gay company were assembled.  During the next hour, he took occasion now and then to search out Margaret in the crowd, and more than once he found that her eyes were upon him.

“Once more,” he said, crossing the room and going up to where she was leaning upon the arm of an acquaintance.

“May I have the pleasure of dancing with you in the next set?”

“Thank you, sir,” replied Margaret, with unbending dignity; “I am already engaged.”

Clinton bowed and turned away.  The fate of the maiden was sealed.  She had carried her experiment too far.  As the young man moved across the room, he saw Lizzy Edgar sitting alone, her face lit up with interest as she noted the various costumes, and observed the ever-forming and dissolving tableaux that filled the saloon, and presented to the eye a living kaleidoscope.

“Alone,” he said, pausing before the warm-hearted, even tempered girl.

“One cannot be alone here,” she replied, with a sweet smile irradiating her countenance.  “What a fairy scene it is,” she added, as her eyes wandered from the face of Clinton and again fell upon the brilliant groups around them.

“Have you danced this evening?” asked Clinton.

“In one set,” answered Lizzy.

“Are you engaged for the next in which you may feel disposed to take the floor?”

“No, sir.”

“Then may I claim you for my partner?”

“If it is your pleasure to do so,” replied Lizzy, smiling.

In a cotillion formed soon afterward in that part of the room, were Margaret Hubert and her sweet friend Lizzy Edgar.  Margaret had a warmer color on her cheeks than usual, and her dignity towered up into an air of haughtiness, all of which Clinton observed.  Its effect was to make his heart cold towards her, instead of awakening an ardent desire to win a proud and distant beauty.

In vain did Margaret look for the young man to press forward, the moment the cotillion was dissolved, and claim her for the next.  He lingered by the side of Miss Edgar, more charmed with her than he had ever been, until some one else came and engaged the hand of Miss Hubert.  The disappointed and unhappy girl now unbent herself from the cold dignity that had marked her bearing since her entrance into the ball-room, and sought to win him to her side by the flashing brilliancy of her manners; but her efforts were unavailing.  Clinton had felt the sweeter, purer, stronger attractions of one free from all artifice; and when he left her side, he had no wish to pass to that of one whose coldness had repelled, and whose haughtiness had insulted him.