Bluebell. Mrs. G. C. Huddleston
pabulum to the vanity of a young lady in her first glimpse of conquest, and who believed she had stricken down a quarry worthy of her bow. Having nothing to distract her, she considered the problem exhaustively from morning till night, and, if she were not in love with him before, she had got him into her head now, if not into her heart. His being so much with Cecil did not strike her as any clue to the mystery. They were relations, of course, or nearly the same thing; there was no flirting in their matter-of-fact intercourse.
Cecil found her one afternoon reading over the bed-room fire, in a somewhat desponding attitude. Miss Rolleston had just come in from a drive, her slight form shrouded in sealskins, an air of brightness and vivacity replacing her usual rather languid manner.
"You wouldn't think it was snowing from my cloak," cried she. "It is though—quite a heavy fall, if you can call anything so light heavy. We were quite white when we came in, but it shakes off without wetting."
"It won't be very good sleighing, then, to-morrow, and the wind is getting up, too."
"And what have you been doing, Bluebell?"
"I walked with the children and Miss Prosody in the Queen's Park," said the latter, rather dolefully.
"And it was very cold and stupid, I suppose?" said Cecil, kindly. "Come down to the drawing-room and try some duets."
There were two or three visitors below and Bertie, and some tea was coming in. They were looking at a picture of Cecil's just returned from being mounted as a screen. It was a group of brilliant autumn leaves—the gorgeous maple, with its capricious hues, an arrow-shaped leaf, half red, half green, like a parrot's feather, contrasting with another "spotted like the pard," and then one blood-red. The collecting of them had been an interest to the children in their daily walks, and Cecil had arranged them with artistic effect.
One of the visitors was a rather pretty girl, whom Bluebell had known formerly. She gave her, however, only a distant bow, while she answered with the greatest animation any observation of Captain Du Meresq's. This young lady was to be one of the sleighing party next day, and, as far as she could admit such a humiliating fact, was trying to convey to him, that she was as yet unappropriated for any particular sleigh.
"Who is to drive you, Miss Rolleston?" asked she, suspecting, from his backwardness in coming forward, that the object of her intentions might be engaged there.
"I am going in the last sleigh, with Major Fane. We take the luncheon and pay the turnpikes. He is Vice-President this time."
"By-the-bye, Du Meresq," said the Colonel, rather exercised to find a lady of the party without a swain, "whom have you asked?"
"Oh, everybody is engaged," said Bertie, mendaciously ignoring Miss Kendal's half-admission of being open to an offer. "I shall not join the drive at all, unless," he added, in a hesitating manner, as if it was a sudden thought, "Miss Leigh will compassionate me, and allow me to take charge of her."
Bluebell, confused by this unexpected proposition, and by feeling so many eyes turned upon her, did not immediately make any answer; then a vexatious remembrance intruded itself, and she replied, with what that individual would have thought most unnecessary concern—
"I am very sorry—I mean—I believe I am half-engaged to Mr. Vavasour."
"I should think you were," said Mrs. Rolleston. "I don't know what he would say if you threw him over."
"Oh!" said Bertie, plaintively, "if that insinuating youth has been beforehand, of course there's no chance for me. Well, I am out of the hunt,"—and he carelessly whistled a bar of "Not for Joseph" in reply to a suggestive motion of his sister's towards Miss Kendal.
"I should think it so dull," said that young lady, tossing her head, "to be engaged so long before. I do not intend to decide till the day."
"What shall you keep all your admirers in suspense till the last moment?" said Bertie, with a covert sneer, for he was angry at her slighting behaviour to Bluebell. "What a scramble there will be!"
Miss Kendal was not altogether satisfied with the tone of the remark, so she commenced tying on her cloud, observing sharply, "Well, mamma, we shall be benighted if we stay any longer."
Bertie dutifully attended them to the sleigh, and won the elder lady's heart by the skill with which he tucked round her the fur robes and the parting grace of his bow.
She was about to purr out some commendation, when—"What a bear that man is!" burst with startling vehemence from Miss Kendal's coral lips.
"Oh! my dear, what can you mean? I thought he seemed so agreeable."
"I as good as told him," muttered the ruffled fair, too angry to be reticent, "that I had no one to drive me to-morrow; and I think it was real rude asking that Bluebell Leigh before my face—a mere nursery governess—and not giving me so much as the chance of refusing him."
"But you said," urged Mrs. Kendal, who did not see beyond the proverbial nasal tip, "that you would not decide on your sleigh till the day."
"I only know," said the daughter, with dark emphasis, "I wouldn't drive with him now, if he went on his bended knees to ask me."
"Thank you, Bella," said Bertie, returning. "Nice little game you had cut out for me! What an odious girl!"
Cecil's jealous instinct detected the root of this animosity, more especially guided thereto by his attempt to secure Bluebell as a companion, which had surprised her not too agreeably.
"What is her crime," said she, sarcastically, "beyond a rather transparent design of driving with you Bertie?"
"She is hung with bangles like an Indian squaw, and has a Yankee twang in her voice."
"She pretended to scarcely remember me," said Bluebell, "though we were at school together."
"Jealous, I dare say," laughed Bertie. "Is she an admirer of Jack Vavasour's?"
"Fancy any one admiring a boy like that!" said Bluebell, who did not feel in charity with her allotted charioteer.
Bertie had advanced to take her cup, and as she said this, it seemed to Cecil he touched her hand caressingly under cover of it.
"I dare say," said she sharply, "Alice Kendal has as many admirers as other people, and, perhaps, can dispense with counting Captain Du Meresq among them."
Bluebell looked up, astonished at her manner; but Bertie perceived it with more intelligence, and the thought, "What a bore it will be if she is jealous," afterwards passed through his mind—by which may be inferred he had had in contemplation the acquisition of "Heaven's last best gift."
CHAPTER VII.
THE GARRISON SLEIGH CLUB.
'T were a pity when flowers around us rise,
To make light of the rest, if the rose be not there;
And the world is so rich in resplendent eyes,
'T were a pity to limit one's love to a pair.
Moore.
"I never saw a prettier sight in my life," cried Cecil, as she stood with a motley group in the verandah of "The Maples," the rendezvous of the sleighing party. As each sleigh turned in at the gate and deposited its freight, it fell into rank which extended all round the lawn, till scarcely a space was left on the drive that encircled it, and the air rang with the bells on the nodding horses' heads.
"What the—blazes!" ejaculated Bertie, as Mr. Vavasour rounded the corner at a trot in a red-wheeled tandem, scarlet plumes on the horses, and the