CHAPTER II.

"And you're to dance the last dance with me, remember, Miss Merridew."

"Indeed, Sir Harry, I will not promise you that."

"You will not promise? But you have promised."

" Have promised? What do you mean, sir? I think you are forgetting yourself!" and Miss Sibyl Merridew lifted up her graceful head with a little air of hauteur that was by no means unbecoming to her piquant beauty.

But young Sir Harry Willing was not to be put down by this pretty little provincial,—not he; and so, lifting up his head with an air of hauteur, he said to Miss Sibyl,—

"I crave Miss Merridew's pardon, but perhaps if she will reflect a moment she will recall what she said to me yester morning when I begged her to give me the pleasure of dancing the last minuet with her to-night."

Waving her great plumy feather fan to and fro, Sibyl looked across it at her companion, and answered in a little sweetly impertinent tone,—

"But I never reflect."

"So I should judge, madam," retorted the youth, wrathfully; "but perhaps," he went on, "if Miss Merridew will deign to bestow a glance upon this"—and the young fellow pulled from his pocket a gold-mounted card and letter case, out of which he took a tablet upon which was written: "Met Miss Sibyl Merridew this morning on the mall. She promised to dance the last minuet with me to-morrow night. Mem. Send roses if they are to be had in the town!"

Sibyl blushed as she read this. Then lifting the flowers—Sir Harry's roses—to her face for a moment, she dropped a demure courtesy and said, with a gleam of fun in her eyes,—

"If Sir Harry finds that it is necessary for him to recall his friends and engagements by memorandum notes, he certainly cannot expect an untutored provincial maid, who carries no such orderly appliance about with her, to charge her mind unaided."

"An untutored provincial maid!" exclaimed Sir Harry, all his wrath extinguished by her pretty recognition of his flowers and his admiration of her ready wit,—"an untutored provincial maid! By my faith, Miss Sibyl, you'd put to shame many a court dame. But, hark, what's that? As I live, the musicians are tuning up for the minuet." And smilingly he held out his hand to her.

A very pretty pair
A very pretty pair

"A very pretty pair," said more than one of the assembled company, as the two took their places in the beautifully decorated ball-room; and as the dance progressed, Mr. Jeffrey Merridew, watching his niece from his post of observation, said to himself with, a congratulatory smile,—

"Where now are Miss Sibyl's fine rebel principles? I scarcely think they would stand a test."

Almost at that very moment Sir Harry, boy as he was, spite of his one-and-twenty years, was giving vent to a little boastful talk about "our army" and "those undisciplined rebels who would never stand the test against a full regiment of regulars."

"Why," Sir Harry declared at length, led on by Sibyl's air of great interest, "we have positive information that their troops at Cambridge have neither arms nor ammunition to carry on a defence, and they are in a sorry condition every way; it is impossible for them to resist us successfully. We shall literally sweep them off the face of the earth if they attempt it."

"And you—the King's troops?" inquired Sibyl.

"We—well, we have been a little straitened ourselves for the munitions of war," replied the young aide-de-camp, "but by to-morrow night a vessel will arrive for us that will relieve all such necessities. Ah," with a gay smile, "what would not these rebels give to get possession of this information, and put their cruisers on the alert to capture such a prize!"

"But there is no possibility of this?"

"Not the slightest. But you are pale,—don't be alarmed; there is no danger. The rebels have no suspicion of the expected arrival, we are certain."

"But if they had?"

"Well, that might alter the case. Their seamen know their business better than their landsmen."

All this in the pauses of the dance. When they started up again, the music had accelerated its time, and down the great hall they led the way at a fine pace; but in swinging about to return, Sir Harry felt his companion falter.

"What is it?" he asked anxiously.

"My slipper," she replied with a vexed laugh; and, stooping as she spoke, she whisked off a little satin shoe, the high hollow metal heel of which had suddenly given way. Certainly no more dancing that night. For that matter, though, it was near the end of the ball. But could not he do something? Sir Harry asked. He had tinkered gunscrews; why not a slipper? No, no; nothing could be done then and there. A new heel must be hammered and fitted on.

But then and there Sibyl had a sudden inspiration. Something could be done. She was to go to Madame Boutineau's rout the next evening. She needed these very slippers for that occasion. Would Sir Harry—on his way to his quarters that night—would he think it beneath his dignity to leave the slippers at Anthony Styles the shoemaker's? It was just there by the tavern at the sign of the gilded boot. He had only to drop the shoe, with a message she would write to go with it, into the tunnel-box by the door, and Anthony would find it by daylight and set to work upon it at once, that she might not be disappointed, for it was a longish job, she knew.

Beneath his dignity! Sir Harry laughed. He was only too glad to do her bidding.

And would he then give her a bit of paper and pencil and take her to the cloak-room for a moment?

Alone in the cloak-room, Sibyl wrote her message to Anthony Styles. Folding the paper in the slipper, and wrapping the whole in her pocket-handkerchief, she fastened the parcel securely with the silken cord that had held her fan.

"And may I have the last dance to-morrow night?" asked Sir Harry, smilingly, as he took leave of her a few minutes later.

"Perhaps, if I may depend upon you—and Anthony Styles," she answered. Her eyes sparkled like dark jewels as she spoke; her cheeks burned like red twin roses. imeonSBSj6tHNaq14OoPx33f+x13MFPe29qk3IjjvDKgTbRvckbciLa3lq5rPJs1