said he nodding. "You'll do."

"This will be a very funny dress for me to play proverbs in,—don't you think so? I don't look much like Judy's Satinalia."

"Not much," said Norton. "You don't look much like Judy's anything. O Pink! do you know we are going to have a witch here to-night?"

"A witch?" said Matilda.

"A capital witch. It's a capital idea too, for it's a new thing; and it's so hard to get hold of something new. I expect this'll be the party of the season."

"What do you mean?" said Matilda.

"You'll see," said Norton. "Only don't be frightened. The witch won't hurt you."

And here came Judy, and took a good silent stare at Matilda. The two girls were dressed alike. Norton watched them with a sly glance. Without any remark or salutation Judy passed them with a toss of her head, and went into one of the drawing-rooms.

"She'll do," said Norton, with a competent nod of his head in Judy's direction. "That is, she'll do the insolent, whenever she has a mind to. She is a case, is Judy Bartholomew. Well, come, we must get out of the way, Pink. Somebody'll be here soon."

So they strolled into the lighted drawing-rooms, where Judy and David were; and strolled about, consulting arrangements for the play, till the doors opened and other white dresses, and coloured sashes, and gallant white-trowsered young gentlemen began to pour in and claimed their attention. And ladies accompanied them, not a great many, but a few favoured mothers and aunts and elder sisters; and soon the drawing-rooms were all alive with motion and colour, and noisy with the hum of many voices.

It was a wonderful scene to Matilda. She forgot that she had so little to do with it, and was so left out of it by the gay little throng. She did not at first think of that. To be sure she was a stranger; it was quite natural, as it seemed to her, that she should be left out. The pleasure was great enough, merely to look on. Everybody else was very busy talking and laughing and moving about the rooms,—all except herself. Matilda had never seen such a display of very young ladies and gentlemen; the variety of styles, the variety of dresses, the diversity of face and manner, were an extremely rich entertainment. She noticed airs and graces in some, which she thought sat very ill on them;—affectations of grown-up manner, tossings of curls, and flaunting of white gloves, and waving of fans, at which Matilda's simplicity was greatly astonished. Little gentlemen stood before little ladies, with hands behind their backs, and entertained them in conversation which appeared to be of the politest sort. And Judy's blue scarf flitted from end to end of the rooms, dipped to the floor as she courtesied to new comers, and fluttered with delight as she darted to speak to some favourite or other. The rooms grew very lively. The gas lights shone upon all the colours of the rainbow, moving and changing as if Mrs. Lloyd's house had been a kaleidoscope. David and Norton were not in the company. Suddenly Norton stood at Matilda's side.

"What are you doing here, Pink?"

"Nothing." Matilda looked and smiled at him. "Only looking at everything."

"But you ought to be in it, Pink."

"In what?"

"Why! in the work; in the talk. What are you sitting in a corner here for?"

"You know, Norton, I do not know anybody."

"Hasn't Judy introduced you? Not to any one?" said Norton. "Left you here? Judy Bartholomew! if it wasn't Christmas night and an inconvenient time to make a row"—

"Hush, hush, Norton. I am having a very good time," said Matilda, looking as she felt, like a very happy little girl.

"Well," said Norton, "there are two odd people here to-night. One of 'em's Judy Bartholomew, and the other is—somebody you don't know. Come! come here. Esther Francis!—this is my sister, my new sister Matilda. Hasn't Judy introduced you?"

Norton had caught by the arm, as she was passing, a girl of about Judy's age, whom he thus brought face to face with Matilda. She was sweet-faced and very handsomely dressed, and she had no sort of shyness about her. She took Matilda's hand and looked at her with a steady look.

"Take care of her, will you?" Norton went on. "I have got to go and arrange things with Davie; and Judy has her head full. Tell Matilda who's who; she does not know the people yet."

The two girls stood a minute or two silently together; Esther giving however a side glance now and then at her companion.

"You have not been long in town?" she said then, by way of beginning.

"Only three weeks."

"Of course then you are quite a stranger. It is very disagreeable, isn't it, to be among a whole set of people that you don't know?" Esther said it with a little turn of her pretty head, that was—Matilda could not tell just what it was. It shewed the young lady very much at her ease in society, and it was not quite natural; that was all she could make out. Matilda answered, that she did not find anything disagreeable. Esther opened her eyes a little wider.

"Do you know all about the arrangements to-night?" she whispered.

"I suppose I do."

"Will there be dancing?"

"I have heard nothing about dancing," said Matilda. "I don't think there'll be much time for it. I don't see how there can be."

"Are you very fond of dancing?" Esther asked, with her eyes at the further end of the next room.

Matilda was conscious of feeling ashamed of her answer. Nevertheless she answered. "I do not know how to dance."

"Not dance!" said Esther, with a new glance at her. "Did you never dance? O there's nothing I care for at parties but to dance. And there are just enough here to night; not a crowd. Aunt Zara will send you to dancing-school, I suppose. But it isn't so pleasant to begin to learn when you are so old."

"Aunt Zara!" said Matilda. "Norton did not say you were his cousin."

"Norton's head was too full," said Esther with another movement of her head that struck Matilda very much; it was quite like a grown-up young lady; and gave Matilda the notion that she thought a good deal of Norton. "Yes; we are cousins; that is why he told me to take care of you."

Matilda was tempted to say that Norton would save her that trouble as soon as he was at leisure to take it upon himself; but she did not. Instead, she asked Esther how old she had been when she began to take dancing lessons?

"I don't know; three and a half, I believe."

The deficiency of Matilda's own education pressed upon her heavily. She was a little afraid to go on, for fear of laying bare some other want.

"Yes," said Esther after another interval of being absorbed in what was going on in the next room;—"yes; of course, you know I began to learn to dance as soon as I began to wear—stays," she uttered in a whisper, and went on aloud. "The two things together. O yes; I was almost four years old."

Here she broke off to speak to some one passing, and Matilda was lost in wonderment again. A little uneasy too; for though the young lady kept her post at the side of the charge Norton had given her, and evidently meant to keep it, Matilda thought she had an air of finding her office rather a bore. A young lady who had danced and worn stays from the time she was four years old, must necessarily know so much of life and the world that a little ignoramus of a country girl would be a bore.

"What are they going to do then to-night, if we are not to dance?" resumed Esther when her friend had passed on. "Just have the Christmas tree and nothing else?"

Nothing else but a Christmas tree! Here was an experience!

"Norton and David are going to make a play," said Matilda; "acting a proverb."

"Oh!" said Esther. "A proverb! David is a good player, and Norton too; excellent; that will be very good. I thought I heard something about a witch; what is that?"

"What is what?" said Judy, who found herself near.

"About the witch?" said Esther.