Oh, what discussions took place in the old oak parlour over the approaching festivity! How was it to be conducted? What was to be the programme for the evening? and who were to be included in the list of invitations?
"I suppose your friends will be able to dance, Dick?" inquired Winnie one night when they were sitting together talking as usual about the great event in prospect. "Mamma says we cannot play games all the evening."
"Well, I daresay they can do a hop or two when it's necessary," answered the boy lazily. "Just you get hold of Archie Trollope and he'll spin you round and round the room in a twinkle; not very gracefully, perhaps, but with no lack of energy. He's the boy to do it;" and Dick laughed as he pictured the charming spectacle with his mental eye.
"If he cannot dance properly," she said, with a touch of contempt in her voice, "most assuredly he will not have the honour of dancing with me. I have no desire to figure ridiculously in a ball-room," and the little lady drew herself up proudly as she spoke.
"The honour!" he gasped spasmodically--"the honour! My eye! listen to the princess!" and rolling himself about in convulsions of laughter, the vulgar boy ended his merriment by tilting over his chair and landing himself gracefully on the floor.
"Why not an honour, pray?" inquired Winnie, looking loftily on the sprawling form at her feet. "Is it not a _great_ privilege for any gentleman to dance with a lady?" and the indignant child laid special stress on the word "great."
Dick rose, and treating her to a sweeping Sir Charles Grandison bow, replied, "You are right, madam; the honour is inestimable." At this both laughed, and continued the interrupted conversation.
"Ada Irvine has accepted her invitation, Dick," was Winnie's next announcement, given with ominous gravity. "No one ever imagined she would do so, and all the school-girls are talking about it."
"Depend upon it, Win," he said solemnly, "there's something in the wind. Ada Irvine's not the girl to take such a step without having a reason for so doing. I guess you and Nellie had better look out for squalls, for if Miss Ada's not up to some low dodge, my name's not Richard Blake."
And even while they were speaking, the subject of their conversation sat up in her comfortable bedroom at Mrs. Elder's, thinking over the first link she was about to forge in the long chain of bitter malice and deceit. She was seated in a low basket-chair before the fire, making a pretty picture with her long fair hair floating down her back, and her dainty figure nestling cosily amongst the soft cushions. Her blue eyes had an absent, far-away look, and the small white hands lying on her lap were nervously interlaced one with the other.