amazed or enchanted by her wonderful cleverness
—all the more wonderful in a creature so
bewilderingly pretty and sweet.

She was new too, quite new. Bob had never
seen anybody in the least like her. Girls
usually pretended to be shy of him, partly from
liking and a desire to attract, and partly from
the reputation he had of being wild. Polly
knew nothing about wildness. His mother and
sisters adored him, the maid-servant smiled
when he spoke, the dogs lay at his feet and
were happy. He was no beauty, but he was
a fine manly young fellow, and very popular in
his neighbourhood. To Polly he seemed a rather
mature person—he was not far from thirty—
and after the first blush, the sense of her highly
responsible position came to her aid, and
re-established her in perfect calm. It was
delicious to Bob to be looked innocently in the face
by those soft brown eyes, and talked to without
any sham airs and graces. A strain of jocular
compliment was all that was usually required
of him when he had a pretty girl at his elbow;
but Polly was as good as a lesson in manners;
she did not expect compliments, and he had the
wit to see she would not like them. So he
adopted her tone of conversation with seriousness,
only relapsing into his original frame of
mind twice or thrice for a moment, when her
assumption of sageness and duty became too
much for his sense of the ridiculous.

The formality and propriety of the party held
out through dinner, but the instant Maggie got
Polly into the parlour, she seized her by the
waist and whirled her round in a waltz. "Don't,
Maggie," said Polly, but entered into the spirit
of it all the same; and more, when Fanny good-
naturedly opened the piano, and offered to play
for them, the music brought Bob, who composed
himself in his arm-chair, and looked on,
until Maggie popped her partner down breathless
on the sofa and herself by her.

"That will do, what a dust you have made,"
said he, and Polly started and felt abashed at
her inappropriate behaviour. Yet a few minutes
after Bob was making a dust himself, and learning
the new step of Polly, which he knew
perfectly; if his sisters had not worshipped him
with fear, they would have told her that he
was only doing it to tease her and amuse
himself. He managed to be most skilfully stupid;
a dozen times, at least, did Polly "put his feet
in the way of it," as she said, and a dozen times
did he fail to do it correctly. He suggested
that perhaps if he did it with her, he might
succeed in keeping time, but Polly said "No,
let him try it with Maggie, she was a better
height for him." He, however, did it worst of
all with Maggie, and Polly for the honour of
her teaching was prevailed on to take him in
hand herself.

"But I don't expect you will be able to do
it," said she, despairingly.

Fanny at the piano glanced over her shoulder
laughing, and even Mrs. Livingstone watched
with an amused smile while Bob redeemed his
character. He knew how to hold his partner
at all events, Polly thought at the start, and it
was astonishing how fast he improved with her
to keep him in step. In fact, he caught it up
directly, though when Polly wished him to try
it again with Maggie, his awkwardness was, if
possible, more conspicuous than before.

"This is very discouraging; of course I don't
mean that you can help it," said Polly, in the
most admirable tone of a patient teacher dealing
with a dull but willing pupil.

The inconvenient Maggie burst out in a long
suppressed merry peal of laughter: "O, you
dear little comical darling, Bob is only making
fun; he can dance as well as any of us!" cried
she.

Polly gazed up for half a minute with blank
dismay at Bob, then joined in the laugh against
herself, and said: "If you are that sort of
person, I shall take care how I give you a
dancing-lesson again!"

FAREWELL SERIES OF READINGS

BY

MR. CHARLES DICKENS.

MESSRS. CHAPPELL AND CO. beg to announce
that, knowing it to be the determination of MR.
DICKENS finally to retire from Public Reading soon
after his return from America, they (as having been
honoured with his confidence on previous occasions)
made proposals to him while he was still in the
United States achieving his recent brilliant successes
there, for a final FAREWELL SERIES OF READINGS in
this country. Their proposals were at once accepted
by MR. DICKENS, in a manner highly gratifying to
them.

The Series will commence in the ensuing autumn,
and will comprehend, besides London, some of the
chief towns in England, Ireland, and Scotland.
It is scarcely necessary for MESSRS. CHAPPELL AND
Co. to add that any announcement made in connexion
with these FAREWELL READINGS will be strictly
adhered to, and considered final; and that on no
consideration whatever will MR. DICKENS be induced to
appoint an extra night in any place in which he
shall have been once announced to read for the last
time.

All communications to be addressed to MESSRS.
CHAPPELL AND CO., 50, New Bond-street, London, W.

On the 12th instant will be published, bound in
cloth, price 5s. 6d.

THE NINETEENTH VOLUME.