VERY HARD CASH.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND."

                              CHAPTER VII.

HE did follow her, and, convinced that she
would be engaged ten deep in five minutes,
hustled up to the master of the ceremonies and
begged an introduction. The great banker's son
was attended to at once.

Julia saw them coming, as her sex can see,
without looking. Her eyes were on fire, and a
delicious blush on her cheeks, when the M.C.
introduced Mr. Alfred Hardie with due pomp. He
asked her to dance.

"I am engaged for this dance."

"The next?" said Hardie, timidly.

"With pleasure."

But when they had got so far, they were both
seized with bashful silence; and, just as Alfred
was going to try and break it, Cornet Bosanquet,
age 18, height 5 feet 4 inches, strutted up to them
with clanking heel, and, glancing haughtily up at
him, carried Julia off, like a steam-tug towing
away some fair schooner.

To these little thorns society treats all anxious
lovers, but the incident was new to Alfred, and
discomposed him; and, besides, he had nosed a
rival in Sampson's prescription. So now he
thought to himself, "that little ensign is 'his
puppy.'"

To get rid of Mrs. Dodd he offered to conduct
her to a seat. She thanked him; she would
rather stand where she could see her daughter
dance: on this he took her to the embrasure of
a window opposite where Julia and her partner
stood, and they entered a circle of spectators.

The band struck up, and the solemn skating
began.

"Who is this lovely creature in white?" asked
a middle-aged solicitor. "In white? I do not
see any beauty in white," replied his daughter.
"Why there, before your eyes," said the gentleman,
loudly.

"What, that girl dancing with the little
captain? I don't see much beauty in her. And
what a rubbishing dress."

"It never cost a pound, making and all,"
suggested another Barkingtonian nymph.

"But what splendid pearls," said a third: "can
they be real?"

"Real! what an idea!" ejaculated a fourth:
"who puts on real pearls as big as peas with
muslin at twenty pence the yard?"

"Weasels!" muttered Alfred, and quivered
all over: and he felt to Mrs. Dodd so like a
savage going to spring that she laid her hand
upon his wrist, and said gently, but with authority,
"Be calm, sir! and oblige me by not noticing
these people."

Then they threw dirt on her bouquet, and then
on her shoes, while she was winding in and out
before their eyes a Grace, and her soft muslin
drifting and flowing like an appropriate cloud
round a young goddess.

"A little starch would make it set out better.
It's as limp as a towel on the line."

"I'll be sworn it was washed at home."

"Where it was made."

"I call it a rag, not a gown."

"Do let us move," whispered Alfred.

"I am very comfortable here," whispered Mrs.
Dodd. "How can these things annoy my ears
while I have eyes? Look at her! She is by far
the best dressed lady in the room; her muslin
is Indian, and of a quality unknown to these
provincial shopkeepers; a rajah gave it us: her
pearls have been in every court in Europe; and
she herself is beautiful, would be beautiful dressed
like the dowdies who are criticising her: and, I
think, sir, she dances as well as any lady can,
encumbered with an Atom that does not know the
figure."

At this, as if to extinguish all doubt, Julia
flung them a heavenly smile; she had been
furtively watching them all the time, and she
saw they were talking about her.

The other Oxonian squeezed up to Hardie.
"Do you know the beauty? She smiled your
way."

"Ah!" said Hardie, deliberately, "you mean
that young lady with the court pearls, in that
exquisite Indian muslin, which floats so gracefully,
while the other muslin girls are all crimp
and stiff, like little pigs clad in crackling."

"Ha! ha! ha! Yes. Introduce me!"

"I could not take such a liberty with the
queen of the ball."

Mrs. Dodd smiled, but felt nervous and ill
at ease. She thought to herself, "Now here is
a generous, impetuous pest." As for the hostile
party, staggered at first by the masculine