Belles and Ringers | Page 6

perspective."
"Dancing!" replied the girl, with a shrug of her shoulders. "I don't call a
London ball dancing. One jigs round and round in a place about ten feet
square, but one never gets a really good spin. We have been at
Commonstone balls before. What makes you think this one would be
more uproarious than usual?"
"We have never been to an Easter ball, my dear," replied Lady Mary,
adjusting a piece of fern in her daughter's tresses. "We came down here
for quiet, and if you don't require a rest, I do. You must think of your
poor chaperon a little, Blanche."

"Don't say another word, mamma. You are a dear amiable chaperon,
and have been awfully good about staying a little late at times. I don't
want to drag you over to Commonstone, when your wish is to be left
peacefully at home. We won't do the Easter ball, though it is sad to
think what a capital room they have for it. But come along, there goes
the bell, and I am sure now I look most bewitching."
It was not Lady's Mary's custom to take her daughters into her
confidence, in the first instance, with regard to the matrimonial designs
she had formed for their benefit. All the preliminary manoeuvres she
conducted herself. The idea of young people gravitating together
naturally was a theory she would have received with profound derision.
She looked upon it that all what she would have termed successful
marriages were as much owing to the clever diplomacy of mothers or
chaperons as the victory of a horse in a big race is due to the skilful
handling of his jockey. During the afternoon she had been meditating
over the plan of her Easter campaign, and resolved to adhere to her
original determination. Most decidedly she would have nothing to do
with Commonstone and its gaieties, nor would she afford greater
favour to any revelries at the Rockcliffe camp; and most devoutly did
she wish that it was in her power to keep the rector's daughters
altogether at arm's length, now that she had seen this new cousinly
importation. At arm's length as much as possible the Misses Chipchase
should be held, she determined.
"That Miss Sylla," she muttered, "is just the sort of girl men always
lose their heads about; clever, too, if I mistake not. Well, I don't mean
to see more of her at the Grange than I am positively obliged to; but
keep her out altogether I can't. The Chipchase girls have grown up with
my own, and been always accustomed to come and go pretty much as
they liked. However," thought her ladyship, "the first thing to settle
undoubtedly is this ball;" and, as she and her daughter descended to
dinner, Lady Mary did fancy that, at all events, she had settled that.
"Ah, here you are at last," said the Squire, as they entered the
drawing-room; "dinner is already announced, my lady. Come along,
Mrs. Evesham, it's no use letting the soup get cold."

"How do you do, Mr. Beauchamp?" said Lady Mary, as a dark,
good-looking young fellow came forward to shake hands with her. "It
seems I am dreadfully late, and have only time now to say I am
delighted that you have found your way to Todborough. Perhaps you
will take care of Blanche." And then the hostess turned away to pair off
her other guests.
"I congratulate you, Lady Mary, on so favourable an augury," said
Pansey Cottrell, as he leisurely consumed his fish.
"Favourable augury! What can you mean?"
"Do you not see," returned Cottrell, in mock-tragical tones, "that we are
thirteen to dinner? Do you not know that Lionel Beauchamp is the
thirteenth? and do you not know what Fate has invariably in store for
the thirteenth at a dinner party?"
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Lady Mary; "why, they say it's hanging,
do they not?"
"Well, of late years they have rather qualified the sentence. Popular
opinion, I think, now inclines to the belief that the thirteenth, when a
man, will be either hung--or married."
"I suppose we are advancing in the science of augury as in all other
sciences," replied her ladyship, laughing, "and find that the omens, like
the readings of the barometer, are capable of two interpretations."
"You must not speak lightly of the science of augury, Lady Mary.
Allow me to give you the complete interpretation of the omen. The
Fates have not only decreed that Lionel Beauchamp shall either be
hung or married within the twelvemonth, but reserved the latter lot for
him; and they indicate further who his future wife shall be. When there
is no lady next him, it's a hanging matter, saith the oracle; where there
is, that lady will be his wife before