A few minutes afterwards, the servants entered, the tea-table was removed, chairs were thrust back, a single lady of a certain age volunteered her services at the piano, and dancing began within the ample space which the arch fenced off from the whist-players.
Vernon had watched his opportunity, and at the first sound of the piano had gained Lucretia's side, and with grave politeness pre-engaged her hand for the opening dance.
At that day, though it is not so very long ago, gentlemen were not ashamed to dance, and to dance well; it was no languid saunter through a quadrille; it was fair, deliberate, skilful dancing amongst the courtly,--free, bounding movement amongst the gay.
Vernon, as might be expected, was the most admired performer of the evening; but he was thinking very little of the notice he at last excited, he was employing such ingenuity as his experience of life supplied to the deficiencies of a very imperfect education, limited to the little flogged into him at Eton, in deciphering the character and getting at the heart of his fair partner.
"I wonder you do not make Sir Miles take you to London, my cousin, if you will allow me to call you so.

You ought to have been presented." "I have no wish to go to London yet." "Yet!" said Mr.Vernon, with the somewhat fade gallantry of his day; "beauty even like yours has little time to spare." "Hands across, hands across!" cried Mr.Ardworth.
"And," continued Mr.Vernon, as soon as a pause was permitted to him, "there is a song which the prince sings, written by some sensible old-fashioned fellow, which says,-- "'Gather your rosebuds while you may, For time is still a flying."' "You have obeyed the moral of the song yourself, I believe, Mr.Vernon." "Call me cousin, or Charles,--Charley, if you like, as most of my friends do; nobody ever calls me Mr.Vernon,--I don't know myself by that name." "Down the middle; we are all waiting for you," shouted Ardworth.
And down the middle, with wondrous grace, glided the exquisite nankeens of Charley Vernon.
The dance now, thanks to Ardworth, became too animated and riotous to allow more than a few broken monosyllables till Vernon and his partner gained the end of the set, and then, flirting his partner's fan, he recommenced,-- "Seriously, my cousin, you must sometimes feel very much moped here." "Never!" answered Lucretia.

Not once yet had her eye rested on Mr.
Vernon.

She felt that she was sounded.
"Yet I am sure you have a taste for the pomps and vanities.

Aha! there is ambition under those careless curls," said Mr.Vernon, with his easy, adorable impertinence.
Lucretia winced.
"But if I were ambitious, what field for ambition could I find in London ?" "The same as Alexander,--empire, my cousin." "You forget that I am not a man.