In dreary monotone and excruciatingly English accent the girl read on, as the obsequious dancing master wished to know.
"Vous ne voulez point que je la fasse valser?"
"Non," replied his prophetic patroness, "je suis persuadee que cette mode n'est pas faite pour durer!"
And this volume bore date 1851.
To waltz! The very word had a secret charm for Elaine. What was this waltzing? she ignorantly wondered. Something pleasant it must have been, as Madame Melville declined to allow poor Lucy to learn it, and her meditations grew so interesting that she lost her place on the dreary page, and was only recalled to the present by Miss Charlotte's irritable tones:
"I am sure I cannot think what has come over you, Elaine! You seem quite unable to fix your attention on anything."
Meanwhile, upstairs in Miss Ellen's room, Elaine was the subject of conversation.
"May we take your Elsa with us on our walk to Poole? She will like to see Miss Allonby?" Lady Mabel suggested, instigated thereto by a hint from Claud that he should like to renew the acquaintance of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood.
"If you could wait half an hour—Charlotte does not like her hours interfered with," said Miss Ellen, deprecatingly. "She will be free at four o'clock."
"Does Miss Brabourne never take a holiday?" asked Claud, tracing patterns with his stick on the carpet.