moment. Sir William would take Lady

Thwaite's word for his would be an end of it. not say anything if he accord.

dismissal, and there Lady Fermor could withdrew of his own

Iris was saved from an entreaty which must have been refused, by the arrival of a servant, with an urgent request that Lady Thwaite and Miss Compton would return to the ball-room immediately. The second part of the programme, the cotillon, which was to give speciality to the ball, was about to begin, but it could not be started in the absence of the two ladies.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE COTILLON.

LADY THWAITE was more sorry than ever for having interfered at so inopportune a time, though she had the consolation, which was great to a woman of her character, of knowing now exactly how matters stood.

'Are you quite able for it, Iris ?' she inquired kindly. 'Would you like to wait here a little longer, or to go to your own room for a few minutes? Shall I send to say the cotillon must be put off for another halfhour? It will not matter much, though the supper-hour is coming on.'

But whatever kind of home Lambford had proved to Iris, it had not been a nursery of self-indulgence. The place had not been without its bracing elements. She pulled herself together, slight young girl that she was, as a strong man might have done, and

after putting her hand to her head for a moment, she answered: 'No, thank you; where would be the good? I must not keep everybody waiting and disappoint people;' and then she held up her drooping head and walked like a young queen back to the ball-room.

Lady Thwaite had never admired her so much. She is too good for him and such a fate,' she said to herself, for her abiding conviction was that the marriage was merely a thing of time. Lady Fermor would prevail eventually, as when had she not prevailed? Otherwise what would become of Iris, poor girl, in spite of her beauty and spirit, and what fortune she might inherit ? She was overweighted, and unfortunately she was not fit to measure the clogs calculated to drag anyone down. It was a pity that she could not yield without a struggle. Sir William was a bit of a Turk, although all Lady Thwaite had said of him was true. It was to be hoped that he would not develop into a Bluebeard. If Iris could have seen it to be her wisest course, it might have saved useless. contention and suffering; but Lady Thwaite had done her best, her ladyship wound up. with a shrug of her shoulders.

So courageously did Iris carry herself to hide her wound and hinder herself from becoming a drag on the satisfaction of her neighbours, that only one person remarked the girl who had left the ball-room the happiest creature there, and who returned to it dizzy from a blow, with her maidenly pride up in arms and humiliated, and her heart fluttering with nameless shame, pain, and terror. It was not her old friend, Lucy, who saw the change. It was the awkwardly stiff young man, clumsily encumbered with his lessons in polite accomplishments, wretchedly self-conscious, out of his element, and so racked with anxiety and shaken with alternate ague-fits of heat and cold, hope and fear, that he could not offer the slightest response to the many overtures-some of them not ungenerous or self-seeking-made to him as he hung about the doors and corners of the room. The consequence was that he was pronounced the merest stick, the most unsocial fellow in the world. It was he who was quick to observe the subtle alteration in Iris Compton's look, though her gait was as elastic, and the rosy flush on her delicatelyrounded cheek a more perfect carmine than ever.

เ

They have allowed her to do herself up,' he complained to himself angrily. She is as sick as I am of all this falalling rigmarole.'

There was a little agreeable murmur rather than hush of expectation. Ladies sat and fanned themselves, and complained of the July heat, but could not make up their minds to go out on the terrace-not just at this moment. They hoped there would be no thunderstorm before to-morrow, both for Sir William's hay and their presence at the haymaking. It was so seldom that there was any summer gaiety in Eastham, except tennisparties, of which everybody was sick, or harvest festivals and thanksgiving services, which might be pretty and improving, but were not very entertaining. Gentlemen formed a succession of little circles, copying the circle of officers who wore the badge of the stewards of the concluding ceremonies.

A flutter among those who were not acquainted with the cotillon heralded the entrance of servants with a great basketful of bouquets, composed of distinctive individual flowers, of white stephanotis, roses of every hue, striped carnations, purple petunias, blue or scarlet salvias, yellow and brown calceo