Mr. Sawyer was no sooner released from his self-imposed penance than he flew to the side of his charmer, whom he found, as might be expected, hemmed in by Mamma and Papa, surrounded by a bevy of female acquaintances, and receiving the homage of one or two elaborate dandies of considerable calibre and pretension.
She shook hands with him, however, across young Vainhopes; after which he was forced to fall back upon Parson Dove, whom he accosted with great cordiality and affection.
A man never shows to such advantage as in the presence of his ladye-love. How many a Hercules have we not seen holding her silks for Omphale; his lion-front looking sheepish—not to say asinine; his strength degenerated to clumsiness; his whole exterior denoting helpless subjection and dismay! Mr. Sawyer was no exception to the general rule. He pulled at his neckcloth; twitched his gloves on and off; looked at his boots! listened to the Parson’s platitudes, without hearing a word; finally, made a desperate plunge, and entreated Miss Dove to dance the next quadrille with him.
Miss Dove glanced at a tiny list of running horses, so to speak, that she held in her hand.
Our friend was disgusted beyond measure: he fell back with a mortified bow, and resolved he would not speak to her for the rest of the night. It would be a poor pastime to watch the dancers from a remote corner without participating in their amusements; nevertheless he entered at once on the self-inflicted penance. The ball, however, went on none the less gaily for his abstinence. Lady Barbara nearly swept him off his legs in a whirlwind of crinoline as she waltzed by him at the rate of forty miles an hour. The Tiptoes and the Vainhopes and the rest seemed as unconscious of his presence as if he had never left The Grange, and Cissy Dove, herself dancing with a succession of dandies, each more resplendent and more taken up with himself than another, never glanced but once in the direction of her disappointed swain. That single look, however, had in it something of a pleading expression, that found its way through the embroidered plaits of Mr. Sawyer’s best shirt-front, and mollified the stern heart beneath. It brought him out of his corner; it induced him to think more favourably of life in general, and of the Scotch quadrilles, now striking up merrily, in particular; it even prompted him to select the youngest Miss Hare, a blushing virgin making her first appearance in public, as his partner; and, lastly, tempted him to request Miss Dove and her cavalier, no less a swell than Bob Blazer, to be their _vis-à-vis_.