Grandmamma was awake, propped up in bed, her hair still powdered and her lace night-cap on, when the Marquis and I got home. I leaned over the rail and told her all about the ball. The Marquis sat in the arm-chair by the fire.
"And where is your promised bouquet, my child?" she asked.
I faltered.
"Well, you see, grandmamma, I put it in a chair after the beginning, and Mrs. Gurrage sat on it, so I thought perhaps, as it was all mashed, I could leave it behind."
Grandmamma laughed; she was pleased, I could see, that the evening had gone off without a fiasco!
"I met Sir Antony Thornhirst," I said.
The blue mark appeared vividly and suddenly round grandmamma's mouth—she shut her eyes for a moment. I rushed to her.
"Oh, dear grandmamma," I said, "what can I do?"
She drank something out of a glass beside her, and then said, in rather a weak voice:
"You were saying you met your kinsman. And what was he like,
Ambrosine?"