"Ah!" said Hardie, deliberately, "you mean that young lady with the court
pearls, in that exquisite Indian muslin, which floats so gracefully,
while the other muslin girls are all crimp and stiff; like little pigs
clad in crackling."

"Ha! ha! ha! Yes. Introduce me."

"I could not take such a liberty with the queen of the ball."

Mrs. Dodd smiled, but felt nervous and ill at ease. She thought to
herself, "Now here is a generous, impetuous thing." As for the hostile
party, staggered at first by the masculine insolence of young Hardy, it
soon recovered, and, true to its sex, attacked him obliquely, through his
white ladye.

"Who _is_ the beauty of the ball ?" asked one, haughtily.

"I don't know, but not that mawkish thing in limp muslin."

"I should say Miss Hetherington is the belle," suggested a third.

"Which is Miss Hetherington?" asked the Oxonian coolly of Alfred.

"Oh, she won't do for us. It is that little chalk-faced girl, dressed in
pink with red roses; the pink of vulgarity and bad taste."

At this both Oxonians laughed arrogantly, and Mrs. Dodd withdrew her hand
from the speaker's arm and glided away behind the throng. Julia looked at
him with marked anxiety. He returned her look, and was sore puzzled what