We really have had so many balls both in this and other as immortal
works that, in a literary point of view, we think we must give up
dancing; nor would we have introduced you to Dallington House if there
had been no more serious business on hand than a flirtation with a lady
or a lobster salad. Ah! why is not a little brief communion with the
last as innocent as with the first?
Small feet are flitting in the mazy dance and music winds with inspiring
harmony through halls whose lofty mirrors multiply beauty and add fresh
lustre to the blazing lights. May Dacre there is wandering like a peri
in Paradise, and Lady Aphrodite is glancing with her dazzling brow, yet
an Asmodeus might detect an occasional gloom over her radiant face.
It is but for an instant, yet it thrills. She looks like some favoured
sultana, who muses for a moment amid her splendour on her early love.
And she, the sparkling mistress of this scene; say, where is she? Not
among the dancers, though a more graceful form you could scarcely look
upon; not even among her guests, though a more accomplished hostess
it would be hard to find.
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