After that, a quadrille being proposed, Mrs.Tanberry suggested that Jefferson should run home and bring Fanchon for the fourth lady.

However, Virginia explained that she had endeavored to persuade both her sister and Mr.Gray to accompany the General and herself, but that Mr.Gray had complained of indisposition, having suffered greatly from headache, on account of inhaling so much smoke at the warehouse fire; and, of course, Fanchon would not leave him.

(Miss Carewe permitted herself the slightest shrug of the shoulders.) So they danced the quadrille with Jefferson at the piano and Mr.Marsh performing in the character of a lady, a proceeding most unacceptable to the General, whom Mrs.Tanberry forced to be his partner.

And thus the evening passed gayly away, and but too quickly, to join the ghosts of all the other evenings since time began; and each of the little company had added a cheerful sprite to the long rows of those varied shades that the after years bring to revisit us, so many with pathetic reproach, so many bearing a tragic burden of faces that we cannot make even to weep again, and so few with simple merriment and lightheartedness.

Tappingham Marsh spoke the truth, indeed, when he exclaimed in parting, "O rare Mrs.Tanberry!" But the house had not done with serenades that night.