"It looks like vanity. Say you not so?"
"It surely does—like coquetry, which is the very essence of vanity."
"'Tis well she hears you not."
"I will go over now, and you shall see me tell her so," Romney said, as a man joined them.
"It was a shrewd device; but it fails to deceive me," thought his companion. "He is in love, and he is jealous."
"It is like the days at old Romney Hall, is it not, sweetheart?" said the master of the house, standing beside his wife, as they watched the lines of men and maidens gliding down the length of the room, their gorgeous brocades and glistening jewels reflected as in a mirror in the polished floor.
"Ay," answered Elizabeth, "and the county of Devon could not show more pretty faces than are here to-night. Nancy Lynch is a beauty, and Kitty Lee has the loveliest crinkly hair."
"But Peggy is the queen of the ball," said Huntoon, with a satisfied nod. "See the saucy baggage smiling at her own reflection in the glass."
"I fear she is vain."
"No doubt, being pretty, and a woman."