Not one of these was she, the lady of our tale. There was a quiet
dignity lurking even under her easiest words and actions which made you
feel her notice a compliment: there was a fascination in her calm smile
and in her sunlit eye which made her invitation to amusement itself
a pleasure. If you refused, you were not pressed, but left to that
isolation which you appeared to admire; if you assented, you were
rewarded with a word which made you feel how sweet was such society!
Her invention never flagged, her gaiety never ceased; yet both were
spontaneous, and often were unobserved. All felt amused, and all were
unconsciously her agents. Her word and her example seemed, each instant,
to call forth from her companions new accomplishments, new graces, new
sources of joy and of delight. All were surprised that they were so
agreeable.
CHAPTER X.
_Love's Young Dream_
MORNING came, and the great majority of the gentlemen rose early as
Aurora. The chase is the favourite pastime of man and boy; yet some
preferred plundering their host's preserves, by which means their
slumbers were not so brief and their breakfast less disturbed.
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