Mr.Steel and Mrs.Woodgate apparently missed the same thing through wandering idly in the direction of the band; but the tableau might have been arranged for the express benefit of Charles Langholm and the very young lady upon whom he was dancing laborious attendance.
Mrs.Uniacke had stepped apart from the tall old gentleman with the side whiskers, to whom she had been talking for some time, and had intercepted Rachel as she was passing on with Hugh Woodgate.
"Wait while I introduce you to my most distinguished guest, or rawther him to you," whispered Mrs.Uniacke, with the Irish brogue which rendered her slightest observation a delight to the appreciative.

"Sir Baldwin Gibson--Mrs.Steel." Langholm and the little Miss Gibson were standing close behind, and the trained eye of the habitual observer took in every detail of a scene which he never forgot.

Handsome Mrs.Uniacke was clinching the introduction with a smile, which ended in a swift expression of surprise.

Sir Baldwin had made an extraordinary pause, his hand half way to his hat, his lantern jaws fallen suddenly apart.

Mrs.Steel, though slower at her part of the obvious recognition, was only a second slower, and thereupon stood abashed and ashamed in the eyes of all who saw; but only for another second at the most; then Sir Baldwin Gibson not only raised his hat, but held out his hand in a fatherly way, and as she took it Rachel's color changed from livid white to ruby red.
Yet even Rachel was mistress of herself so quickly that the one or two eye-witnesses of this scene, such as Mrs.Uniacke and Charles Langholm, who saw that it had a serious meaning, without dreaming what that meaning was, were each in hopes that no one else had seen as much as they.