"Who is the young debutante, Miss Lyle?"
Sydney Lyle, coming down the long ball-room on the arm of the most distinguished man in the room, looked up with ill-concealed annoyance at his words.
She followed his glance, and saw little Queenie standing in the center of a group of admirers, fluttering her satin fan with the grace of an embryo coquette. The girl looked lovely as a dream in her thin, white dress, with its multitudinous puffings and frillings.
It was looped here and there with natural rosebuds, and she wore her set of pearls clasped round her white throat and wrists, while her golden hair rippled to her waist in a shower of natural ringlets. Anything more sweetly fair and happy could scarcely be imagined than Queenie, as she stood there, warm and flushed from the dance, and enjoying, with all the keenness of youth and novelty, the honied flatteries of the little court around her. An irrepressible pang of jealousy gave a touch of sharpness to Sydney's voice, as she answered:
"That is my sister Queenie, Captain Ernscliffe—a willful child who ought to be in the school-room this moment, but who has persuaded mamma to let her come here instead."
"Ah! your sister," said Captain Ernscliffe. "I might have known it by her beauty. She has lived near the rose," and he pointed the compliment by a meaning glance that made Sydney blush. "You will introduce me, Miss Lyle?"
"Certainly." Sydney answered, and pausing beside Queenie, she said, carelessly:
"Captain Ernscliffe, this is my sister, Queenie. If she should shock you by her outre manners, please remember that she is but a child and quite unaccustomed to appear in society."
Captain Ernscliffe bowed low over the white-gloved hand of the enchanting little beauty, and Queenie looked up at him and said, with a flash of wrath against Sydney:
"You need not believe Sydney, when she tells you I am nothing but a child, Captain Ernscliffe. I am seventeen years old, and I know how to behave myself just as well as any young lady of my age, in spite of Sydney's warning."