Would anyone ask her to dance?
Would Charley think of her when he had so many grown-up girls, girls quite grown up, all around him?
It would be very sad if at this London party it should be her fate to sit down the whole evening and see others dance.

It would suffice for her, she thought, if she could stand up with Linda, but she had an idea that this would not be allowed at a London party; and then Linda, perhaps, might not like it.

Altogether she had much upon her mind, and was beginning to think that, perhaps, she might have been happier to have stayed at home with her mamma.

She had not quite recovered from the effect of her toss into the water, or the consequent excitement, and a very little misery would upset her.

And so she walked on with her Napoleonic companion, from whom she did not know how to free herself, through one glass-house after another, across lawns and along paths, attempting every now and then to get a word with Linda, and not at all so happy as she had hoped to have been.
At last Gertrude came to her rescue.