But she was not there, and the discovery gave him a pang out of all proportion to its seriousness; since the note in his breast-pocket assured him that at four the next day they would meet.

To his impatience it seemed immeasurably long to wait, and half-ashamed of the impulse, he leaned to Mrs.Fisher to ask, as the music ceased, if Miss Bart had not dined with her.
"Lily?
She's just gone.

She had to run off, I forget where.

Wasn't she wonderful last night ?" "Who's that?
Lily ?" asked Jack Stepney, from the depths of a neighbouring arm-chair.

"Really, you know, I'm no prude, but when it comes to a girl standing there as if she was up at auction--I thought seriously of speaking to cousin Julia." "You didn't know Jack had become our social censor ?" Mrs.Fisher said to Selden with a laugh; and Stepney spluttered, amid the general derision: "But she's a cousin, hang it, and when a man's married--TOWN TALK was full of her this morning." "Yes: lively reading that was," said Mr.Ned Van Alstyne, stroking his moustache to hide the smile behind it.