“She is hung with bangles like an Indian squaw, and has a Yankee twang in her voice.”

“She pretended to scarcely remember me,” said Bluebell, “though we were at school together.”

“Jealous, I dare say,” laughed Bertie.  “Is she an admirer of Jack Vavasour’s?”

“Fancy any one admiring a boy like that!” said Bluebell, who did not feel in charity with her allotted charioteer.

Bertie had advanced to take her cup, and as she said this, it seemed to Cecil he touched her hand caressingly under cover of it.

“I dare say,” said she sharply, “Alice Kendal has as many admirers as other people, and, perhaps, can dispense with counting Captain Du Meresq among them.”

Bluebell looked up, astonished at her manner; but Bertie perceived it with more intelligence, and the thought, “What a bore it will be if she is jealous,” afterwards passed through his mind,—­by which may be inferred he had had in contemplation the acquisition of “Heaven’s last best gift.”

CHAPTER VII.

THE GARRISON SLEIGH CLUB.

  ’T were a pity when flowers around us rise,
    To make light of the rest, if the rose be not there;
  And the world is so rich in resplendent eyes,
    ’T were a pity to limit one’s love to a pair. 
          
                                      —­Moore.

“I never saw a prettier sight in my life,” cried Cecil, as she stood with a motley group in the verandah of “The Maples,” the rendezvous of the sleighing party.  As each sleigh turned in at the gate and deposited its freight, it fell into rank which extended all round the lawn, till scarcely a space was left on the drive that encircled it, and the air rang with the bells on the nodding horses’ heads.

“What the—­blazes!” ejaculated Bertie, as Mr. Vavasour rounded the corner at a trot in a red-wheeled tandem, scarlet plumes on the horses, and the robes a combination of black bear-skins and scarlet trimming.  The leader, a recent importation from England, better acquainted with the hunting-field than the traces, reared straight on end; but a judicious flick on her ear sent her with a bound almost into the next sleigh, and the tandem drew up at the hall door to an inch.

“Post? mail-cart? nonsense!” said Jack, shaking hands all round ’mid an avalanche of chaff.  “Nice cheerful colour for a cold day; that’s all.”

“Quite scorching,” said Major Fane.  “Well, Miss Rolleston, if they leave us behind at the turnpikes, we shall never lose sight of them with Jack’s flames for a beacon.”

“How do you like your tandem, Bluebell?” asked Cecil, “and how far do you expect to get before Mr. Vavasour upsets you?” added she, sotto voce.

“I don’t care if he chooses a good place,” laughed Bluebell.

“Why, I thought Bertie wasn’t going,” said, Mrs. Rolleston, as that individual drove up in a modest cutter with a gentleman companion.