He must
then have loved my dear dead mother, I thought fondly, when twenty
years of separation have not effaced her memory from his heart and
mind.
I was busy with these reflections as we drove through the streets of
the city towards the Hartmann's residence, and I alighted at their
door with my eyes full of unshed tears. How strangely at odds we can
be with the circumstances of our daily lives.
Very soon, however, I was obliged to dispel all such personal and
intimate ruminations. I was no longer my own property to dispose of as
I willed. I was standing in the doorway of the spacious ball-room with
a circle of new-made gentlemen acquaintances around me; my father and
his wife stood a short distance from me and watched the proceedings
without looking at them.
"May I have the fifth Miss Hampden," the very good-looking Mr.
Haliburton was asking with a smile.
"What is the dance?" I interrupted as he was about to scribble his
initials.
"A polka," he replied with sweet urbanity. I shook my head negatively
and tried to look pleasantly sorry. He raised his perfect dark
eye-brows in thorough astonishment and put in an exclamatory "Why?"
"No fast dances," I said in a seriously playful tone, "I will give you
the sixth, it is a lancers."
"Oh, this is too bad," he argued earnestly, "however," he continued
with his peculiar, winning smile, "I am thankful for any." He wrote
his name very badly on my programme, and mine on his, then with a most
graceful bow made way for a new petitioner.
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