on the sward.

At the first gaze the apartment had seemed to her to be floored with black ice; the figures of the dancers appearing upon it upside down.  At last she realized that it was highly-polished oak, but she was none the less afraid to move.

‘I am afraid of falling down,’ she said.

‘Lean on me; you will soon get used to it,’ he replied.  ‘You have no nails in your shoes now, dear.’

His words, like all his words to her, were quite true.  She found it amazingly easy in a brief space of time.  The floor, far from hindering her, was a positive assistance to one of her natural agility and litheness.  Moreover, her marvellous dress of twelve flounces inspired her as nothing else could have done.  Externally a new creature, she was prompted to new deeds.  To feel as well-dressed as the other women around her is to set any woman at her ease, whencesoever she may have come: to feel much better dressed is to add radiance to that ease.

Her prophet’s statement on the popularity of the polka at this juncture was amply borne out.  It was among the first seasons of its general adoption in country houses; the enthusiasm it excited to-night was beyond description, and scarcely credible to the youth of the present day.  A new motive power had been introduced into the world of poesy—the polka, as a counterpoise to the new motive power that had been introduced into the world of prose—steam.

Twenty finished musicians sat in the music gallery at the end, with romantic mop-heads of raven hair, under which their faces and eyes shone like fire under coals.

The nature and object of the ball had led to its being very inclusive.  Every rank was there, from the peer to the smallest yeoman, and Margery got on exceedingly well, particularly when the recuperative powers of supper had banished the fatigue of her long drive.

Sometimes she heard people saying, ‘Who are they?—brother and sister—father and daughter?  And never dancing except with each other—how odd?’  But of this she took no notice.

When not dancing the watchful Baron took her through the drawing-rooms and picture-galleries adjoining, which to-night were thrown open like the rest of the house; and there, ensconcing her in some curtained nook, he drew her attention to scrap-books, prints, and albums, and left her to amuse herself with turning them over till the dance in which she was practised should again be called.  Margery would much have preferred to roam about during these intervals; but the words of the Baron were law, and as he commanded so she acted.  In such alternations the evening winged away; till at last came the gloomy words, ‘Margery, our time is up.’

‘One more—only one!’ she coaxed, for the longer they stayed the more freely and gaily moved the dance.  This entreaty he granted; but on her asking for yet another, he was inexorable.  ‘No,’ he said.  ‘We have a long way to go.’

Then she bade adieu to the wondrous scene, looking over her shoulder as they withdrew from the hall; and in a few minutes she was cloaked and in the carriage.  The Baron mounted to his seat on the box, where she saw him light a cigar; they plunged under the trees, and she leant back, and gave herself up to contemplate the images that filled her brain.  The natural result followed: she fell asleep.

She did not awake till they stopped to change horses; when she saw against the stars the Baron sitting as erect as ever.  ‘He watches like the Angel Gabriel, when all the world is asleep!’ she thought.

With the resumption of motion she slept again, and knew no more till he touched her hand and said, ‘Our journey is done—we are in Chillington Wood.’

It was almost daylight.  Margery scarcely knew herself to be awake till she was out of the carriage and standing beside the Baron, who, having told the coachman to drive on to a certain point indicated, turned to her.

‘Now,’ he said, smiling, ‘run across to the hollow tree; you know where it is.  I’ll wait as before, while you perform the reverse operation to that you did last night.’  She took no heed of the path now, nor regarded whether her pretty slippers became scratched by the brambles or no.  A walk of a few steps brought her to the particular tree which she had left about nine hours earlier.  It was still gloomy at this spot, the morning not being clear.

She entered the trunk, dislodged the box containing her old clothing, pulled off the satin shoes, and gloves, dress, and in ten minutes emerged in the cotton and shawl of shepherd’s plaid.

Baron was not far off.  ‘Now you look the milkmaid again,’ he said, coming towards her.  ‘Where is the finery?’

‘Packed in the box, sir, as I found it.’  She spoke with more humility now.  The difference between them was greater than it had been at the ball.

‘Good,’ he said.  ‘I must just dispose of it; and then away we go.’

He went back to the tree, Margery following at a little distance.  Bringing forth the box, he pulled out the dress as carelessly as if it had been rags.  But this was not all.  He gathered a few dry sticks, crushed the lovely garment into a loose billowy heap, threw the gloves, fan, and shoes on the top, then struck a light and ruthlessly set fire to the whole.

Margery was agonized.  She ran forward; she implored and entreated.  ‘Please, sir—do spare it—do!  My lovely dress—my-dear, dear slippers—my fan—it is cruel!  Don’t burn them, please!’

‘Nonsense.  We shall have no further use for them if we live a hundred years.’

‘But spare a bit of it—one little piece, sir—a scrap of the lace—one bow of the ribbon—the lovely fan—just something!’

But he was as immoveable as Rhadamanthus.  ‘No,’ he said, with a stern gaze of his aristocratic eye.  ‘It is of no use for you to speak like that.  The things are my property.  I undertook to gratify you in what you might desire because you had saved my life.  To go to a ball, you said.  You might much more wisely have said anything else, but no; you said, to go to a ball.  Very well—I have taken you to a ball.  I have brought you back.  The clothes were only the means, and I dispose of them my own way.  Have I not a right to?’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said meekly.

He gave the fire a stir, and lace and ribbons, and the twelve flounces, and the embroidery, and all the rest crackled and disappeared.  He then put in her hands the butter basket she had brought to take on to her grandmother’s, and accompanied her to the edge of the wood, where it merged in the undulating open country in which her granddame dwelt.

‘Now, Margery,’ he said, ‘here we part.  I have performed my contract—at some awkwardness, if I was recognized.  But never mind that.  How do you feel—sleepy?’

‘Not at all, sir,’ she said.

‘That long nap refreshed you, eh?  Now you must make me a promise.  That if I require your presence at any time, you will come to me . . . I am a man of more than one mood,’ he went on with sudden solemnity; ‘and I may have desperate need of you again, to deliver me from that darkness as of Death which sometimes encompasses me.  Promise it, Margery—promise it; that, no matter what stands in the way, you will come to me if I require you.’

‘I would have if you had not burnt my pretty clothes!’ she pouted.

‘Ah—ungrateful!’

‘Indeed, then, I will promise, sir,’ she said from her heart.  ‘Wherever I am, if I have bodily strength I will come to you.’

He pressed her hand.  ‘It is a solemn promise,’ he replied.  ‘Now I must go, for you know your way.’

‘I shall hardly believe that it has not been all a dream!’ she said, with a childish instinct to cry at his withdrawal.  ‘There will be nothing left of last night—nothing of my dress, nothing of my pleasure, nothing of the place!’

‘You shall remember it in this