"What a voice!" Honor exclaimed in mock horror, "truly, you've quite deafened me with that terrible shout," and she frowned pettishly, putting her little gloved hands sympathisingly to her ears.
"Well, that will hold for a while," he answered mischievously, "you need not trouble yourself coming up to hear me again for a while."
"You mean old darling," the girl returned playfully, "I'll go down stairs and not think of you once more all night," and in another instant she was re-established below in all her dignity, while the pressure of her lips yet lingered in a sweet impression on Henry Rayne's cheek.
In an hour from that time the quiet, vacant apartments of Mr. Rayne's house were crowded with a fashionable and merry throng. Young faces beamed with gladness as they glided under the "mistletoe" with their partners, to the strains of dreamy waltzes. The programmes were all filled by now, and the evening's pleasures fully started. Everyone raved about Honor, and with reason, it was quite amusing to see how demonstrative the majority of the young ladies present tried to be with her, intending that this lavish display should be interpreted by the rest as a mark of the familarity which existed between them and Henry Rayne's handsome protégée.
Miss Sadie Reid, Miss Dash and Miss Mountainhead, and all last season's heroines were there, it is the best and worst feature of Ottawa society, that, like a circus, if you attend one fashionable entertainment, you have attended them all, the belles of one ball are the belles of another, and the wall-flowers of one are the wall-flowers of another.
* * * * *
"Honor, whose waltz is this?" said Vivian Standish, pausing before her and looking admiringly into her eyes.
"Oh dear, I don't know," said Honor in assumed despair, "I've lost my programme and am thrown quite on the mercy and veracity of my gentlemen friends. I regret to say—if you say this is yours—I cant refuse it, for I've neither programme nor memory to prove the contrary."
"I hope you may regain neither to-night, for I think, I must make you remember, you've promised me, all the other waltzes, to-night."
"Indeed, I doubt, if even this is yours," retorted she, "I've given you one already."