" All this with the utmost placidity.
Then, 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 thing." As for the hostile
party, staggered at first by the masculine insolence of young Hardy, it
soon recovered, and, true to its sex, attacked him obliquely, through his
white ladye.
"Who _is_ the beauty of the ball ?" asked one, haughtily.
"I don't know, but not that mawkish thing in limp muslin."
"I should say Miss Hetherington is the belle," suggested a third.
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