The simple scarlet of the young Guardsman was undistinguished among the brilliant character-groups which represented old fairy tales and nursery rhymes.  There were ‘The White Cat and her Prince,’ ’Puss-in-Boots and the Princess,’ ‘Little Snowflake and her Bear,’ and, behold, here was the loveliest Fatima ever seen, in the well-known Algerine dress, mated with a richly robed and turbaned hero, whose beard was blue, though in ordinary life red, inasmuch as he was Lady Flora’s impecunious and not very reputable Scottish peer of a brother.  That lady herself, in a pronounced bloomer, represented the little old woman of doubtful identity, and her husband the pedlar, whose ‘name it was Stout’; while not far off the Spanish lady, in garments gay, as rich as may be, wooed her big Englishman in a dress that rivalled Sir Nicolas Blount’s.

There was a pretty character quadrille, and then a general melee, in which Jock danced successively with Cinderella and the fair equestrian of Banbury Cross, and lost sight of Fatima, till, just as he was considering of offering himself to little Bo-peep, he saw her looking a good deal bored by the Spanish lady’s Englishman.

Tossing her head till the coins danced on her forehead, she exclaimed, “Oh, there’s my cousin; I must speak to him!” and sprang to her old companion as if for protection.  “Take me to a cool corner, Jock, " she said, “I am suffocating.”

“No wonder, after waltzing with a mountain.”

“He can no more waltz than fly!  And he thinks himself irresistible!  He says his dress is from a portrait of his ancestor, Sir Somebody; and Flora declares his only ancestor must have been the Fat Boy!  And he thought I was a Turkish Sultana!  Wasn’t it ridiculous!  You know he never says anything but ‘Exactly.’”

“Did he intone it so as to convey all this?”

“He is a little inspired by his ruff and diamonds.  Flora says he wants to dazzle me, and will have them changed into paste before he makes them over to his young woman.  He has just tin enough to want more, and she says I must be on my guard.”

“You want no guard, I should think, but your engagement.”

“What are you bringing that up for?  I suppose you know how Allen wrote to me?” she pouted.

“I know that he thought it due to you to release you from your promise, and that he is waiting anxiously for your reply.  Have you written?”

“Don’t bore so, Jock,” said Elvira pettishly.  “It was no doing of mine, and I don’t see why I should be teased.”

“Then you wish me to tell him that he is to take your silence as a release from you.”

“I authorise nothing,” she said.  “I hate it all.”

“Look here, Elvira,” said Jock, “do you know your own mind?  Nobody wants you to take Allen.  In fact, I think he is much better quit of you; but it is due to him, and still more to yourself, to cancel the old affair before beginning a new one.”