She wanted to look her very best.

The day before the ball she went walking in Hyde Park with her sisters.

It was the fashionable hour of the afternoon, and it was a fine day after three days of almost steady drizzle. The carriage paths were packed almost axle to axle with fashionable carriages of various descriptions. Riders on horseback wove their way among them whenever they could find passage. Pedestrians ambled in a dense, slow-moving crowd along the footpaths. No one was in a hurry. This was not the route one would take if one wished to get anywhere fast. One came into the park during the afternoon in order to observe the beau monde and exchange greetings and gossip with friends and acquaintances. One came to see and be seen. "After all," Vanessa said gaily as they strolled among the throng, "I did not spend half of Elliott's fortune on this bonnet in order to hurry along a deserted back street." "And very fetching it is too," Katherine said. "Meg and I must be content to bask in your reflected glory, Nessie." They all laughed.

And then Margaret felt her own smile drain away, and with it half the blood in her head. One horseman, a military officer who was riding with a group of others, all looking very dashing in their scarlet regimentals, had stopped a few yards ahead of them and was looking intently at them, first in astonishment and then in open delight. A smile lit his face as he swept off his shako and made them a bow.

Crispin Dew! "Meg!" he exclaimed. "And Nessie. And /little Kate/? Is it possible?" Margaret curled her gloved fingers very tightly into her palms at her sides and concentrated hard upon not fainting, while her sisters exclaimed at the sight of him. He swung down from the saddle and came striding toward them, parting the crowd, one of his hands holding the bridle of his horse.

Oh, /why/ had she not been warned of this? Why had no one /told/ her? "Crispin!" Vanessa cried, and she stepped forward to hug him. She had once been married to Hedley Dew, his brother, until Hedley died of consumption.