"Then you will be sure and come?" said Lillie Effingham, as the party of
handsome girls and young men, with whom she was riding, turned through
the opening, on to the turf, at the side of the Serpentine.
"Can you mistrust me?" replied her cavalier, in a low, impressive tone,
that conveyed a far deeper meaning than the four words. "Shall not you
be there?"
"Oh, that is all very well, I know," answered Lillie, patting, with her
small hand, the glossy neck of her Arabian; "but Blanche Heathcote will
be there as well, and Lady Helen, and the bewitching Mrs. Howard; you
will be at no loss for attractive partners."
Charles Trevor—for such was his name—smiled with a peculiar expression;
then, raising his hat to Lillie, pranced off to speak to some men in the
Guards, with whom he was to dine that day at the Palace mess.
[_The reader is now to be let into the secret of who these two
individuals are._]
[Illustration]