“Why, aunt, what nonsense!”
“Now my dearest, dearest girl, it is all for your own sake. Well, then, it must out. He does not like it, you know.”
“What he?”
“Maurice.”
“Well, aunt, I don’t know that I’m bound to dance or not to dance just as Mr. Cumming may like. Papa does not mind my dancing. The people have come here to dance, and you can hardly want to make me ridiculous by sitting still.” And so that wise word did not appear to be very sweet.
And then the amusement of the evening commenced, and Marian stood up for a quadrille with her lover. She however was not in the very best humour. She had, as she thought, said and done enough for one day in Maurice’s favour. And she had no idea, as she declared to herself, of being lectured by aunt Sarah.
“Dearest Marian,” he said to her, as the quadrille came to a close, “it is in your power to make me so happy,—so perfectly happy.”
“But then people have such different ideas of happiness,” she replied. “They can’t all see with the same eyes, you know.” And so they parted.
But during the early part of the evening she was sufficiently discreet; she did waltz with Lieutenant Graham, and polka with Captain Ewing, but she did so in a tamer manner than was usual with her, and she made no emulous attempts to dance down other couples. When she had done she would sit down, and then she consented to stand up for two quadrilles with two very tame gentlemen, to whom no lover could object.
“And so, Marian, your wings are regularly clipped at last,” said Julia Davis coming up to her.