One Doubtful Hour

gh, carrying the thing through with the aid of their youth and charm; but the appearance of the more mature performers gave a curiously bacchanalian air to the whole proceeding. The music was an air to which Effie had often danced at Mhow on sultry, light nights, when a monster silver moon had shed an incredible light on the parched landscape.... At Mhow, indeed, there had always been partners at the balls, if they were not so easily secured for life.... Why had she come back? It was true that Tom's wife--who had all the whims and caprices of a young woman possessing fifteen hundred a year of her own--had got tired of the sister-in-law from England, and had not scrupled to let her see it; but she felt that by appealing to her brother's good-nature, by dwelling on the sordid discomfort, the minor miseries of the Westsea household, she might have secured a prolonged invitation. She told herself bitterly that it was humiliating for a woman past thirty not to have a penny of her own, to be dependent on the capric