The formality which had somewhat characterized the opening ceremonies was entirely banished--it could not live in the atmosphere of music and the dance. Sir William and his compeers in dignity seemed early to be sensible of this, for no sooner had the motion of "hands round" commenced, than he collected his forces, and retreated to the card room, where, from the excitement of the game and wine, they endeavoured to compensate themselves for their want of the more sentimental retrospects of their ladies.
Conversation, which till now had flagged under the withering influence of etiquette, burst forth in all the vivacity of unrestrained and unsophisticated nature. The eyes of Harriet Harrison sparkled like gems, as she and Virginia laughed and chatted together, when they occasionally met in the figures of the dance. But with all Virginia's hilarity, an acute observer might have perceived a shade more than once passing over the sunshine of her countenance; whether owing to some vague presentiment of coming evil--to better defined apprehensions from those events which had so lately passed under her eyes--to the mysterious injunctions of the Recluse, or to some not altogether satisfactory arrangements of the dance, we shall leave the sagacity of the reader to determine. Certain it is, however, that she underwent no little badinage from her lively friend and confidant.
A certain emphatic declination in the notes of the leader, which all the initiated will understand, warned those in possession of the floor, that there is an order of rotation in happiness on these joyful occasions, a cadence, any thing but musical to those happily and mutually suited in partners, while to those not so fortunately coupled, it was a joyful relief. Each gentleman led his partner to her seat, which she had scarcely taken, perhaps, if one of the favoured few, before new applications for the honour of her hand were laid at her feet. Bacon had no sooner escorted Harriet to her place, than turning to her friend he again put in his claim in more formal parlance than his former instinctive aspirations, but again he was doomed to disappointment; Philip Ludwell on this occasion, with a smirking smile upon his countenance, claiming a prior engagement. Bacon scowled upon him with mingled scorn and rage, as he turned upon his heel and besought the honour of the first hand within his reach. But if he was disappointed, his friend Dudley seemed more fortunate, for at the same moment that the former led out his partner, he encountered the latter escorting the pretty Harriet--and certainly no one in the room claimed a larger portion of his sympathy. But he was struck with the change in the countenance of the lively brunette in the very short time which had elapsed between the two sets. During the first, there was a free, untramelled, mischievous expression in her countenance, which was now merged in one of partial embarrassment. The guileless and confiding air with which she had looked into the face of her former partner, was now exchanged for one of consciousness, as if the lively little belle expected retributive justice from her friends for her own previous badinage. The unpractised Dudley interpreted these appearances any thing but favourably to his own ardent hopes.
