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wouldn't invite him when it is what Giles would particularly dislike."
    Letty accepted this rebuff philosophically, saying in a resigned tone: "No, I didn't think you would. Well, what is to be done? Pray don't say you cannot go if Giles does not, for of all the dowdy notions—!"
    Nell flushed. "No such thing! I mean, I haven't the remotest intention of saying such a thing! Only I can't immediately think of any gentleman whom I—" She stopped, as her troubled gaze alighted on two horsemen, riding easily towards them. Her eyes brightened; she exclaimed: "Dysart!"
    "The very man!" declared Letty enthusiastically. "Now you may be easy!"
    This optimism, however, seemed for several minutes to have been ill-founded. The Viscount, who was bestriding a nervous young blood-chestnut few men would have cared to exercise in the Park at an hour when it was thronged with traffic, responded readily enough to his sister's signal, bringing his reluctant mount up to the barouche, and holding it there with all the apparent ease of an accomplished horseman; but when she asked him if he had received an invitation to the Beadings' masquerade, he replied: "Ay, but I don't mean to go."
    "Oh, Dy, you didn't refuse?" Nell said anxiously.
    "No, I didn't refuse precisely," admitted Dysart, whose careless practice it was to leave all but a few favoured invitations unanswered. "Here, Corny! Don't have to introduce you to my sister, do I? Or to Lady Letitia?"
    His companion, who had been holding coyly aloof, edged his horse forward, raising the low-crowned beaver from his head, and bowing slightly to both ladies. Mr. Cornelius Fancot was a chubby-faced young gentleman, slightly junior to the Viscount, whose devoted follower he had been ever since the pair had met at Harrow. There, he had been privileged to lend his aid to his dazzling friend in various hare-brained exploits; later, he had been of invaluable assistance in disposing suitably of the statue of Mercury in the Quad at Christ Church; and if he had never, either when up at Oxford or since both had come down from that seat of learning, contrived to rival Dysart's more celebrated feats, which included putting a donkey to bed with a complete stranger in an inn, and leaping one of his hunters over a dining-table equipped with a full complement of plate, silver, glasses, and chandeliers, he had won for himself, besides the reputation of being one who never refused a wager, considerable fame for having walked the length of Piccadilly on a pair of stilts; and for having won a bet that he would journey to Dover and back again to London before his too-hopeful challenger had made a million dots on sheet after sheet of paper. Unlike his noble friend, he was possessed of a handsome fortune, and was unencumbered by any kin more nearly related to him than several aunts, to whose admonitions he paid no heed at all; and various cousins whom he had no hesitation in condemning as a parcel of slow-tops. His habit proclaimed the sporting man, but a hankering after dandyism was betrayed by buckram-wadded shoulders to his lavishly corded and tasselled Polish coat, and a Brummell tie round his rather short neck. The life and soul of a convivial party at Long's Hotel, or Limmer's, he was apt to be tongue-tied in the presence of ladies, and might be looked for in vain at Almack's Assembly Rooms. He was sufficiently well-acquainted with Nell to feel no particular alarm when she addressed him; but a quizzing glance from Letty's mischievous eyes threw him at once into stuttering disorder. Observing this, the Viscount, with his customary lack of ceremony, recommended that enterprising damsel to pay no need to him. "Not in the petticoat-line," he explained. "Are you going to this precious masquerade, Nell?"
    "Yes, indeed we are, only we find ourselves in a little fix. Cardross has been obliged to cry off, you see, and it is so disagreeable to go to such affairs with no gentleman to escort one! And Felix cannot go with us