emerging from the stony abyss in which they are buried, would find
something to admire in the flats of La Beauce. However, as the poetic
shades of Aulnay, the hillsides of Antony, and the valley of the Bieve
are peopled with artists who have traveled far, by foreigners who are
very hard to please, and by a great many pretty women not devoid of
taste, it is to be supposed that the Parisians are right. But Sceaux
possesses another attraction not less powerful to the Parisian. In the
midst of a garden whence there are delightful views, stands a large
rotunda open on all sides, with a light, spreading roof supported on
elegant pillars. This rural baldachino shelters a dancing-floor. The
most stuck-up landowners of the neighborhood rarely fail to make an
excursion thither once or twice during the season, arriving at this
rustic palace of Terpsichore either in dashing parties on horseback,
or in the light and elegant carriages which powder the philosophical
pedestrian with dust. The hope of meeting some women of fashion, and
of being seen by them--and the hope, less often disappointed, of seeing
young peasant girls, as wily as judges--crowds the ballroom at
Sceaux with numerous swarms of lawyers' clerks, of the disciples of
Aesculapius, and other youths whose complexions are kept pale and moist
by the damp atmosphere of Paris back-shops. And a good many bourgeois
marriages have had their beginning to the sound of the band occupying
the centre of this circular ballroom. If that roof could speak, what
love-stories could it not tell!

This interesting medley gave the Sceaux balls at that time a spice of
more amusement than those of two or three places of the same kind near
Paris; and it had incontestable advantages in its rotunda, and the
beauty of its situation and its gardens. Emilie was the first to
express a wish to play at being COMMON FOLK at this gleeful suburban
entertainment, and promised herself immense pleasure in mingling with
the crowd. Everybody wondered at her desire to wander through such a
mob; but is there not a keen pleasure to grand people in an incognito?
Mademoiselle de Fontaine amused herself with imagining all these
town-bred figures; she fancied herself leaving the memory of a
bewitching glance and smile stamped on more than one shopkeeper's heart,
laughed beforehand at the damsels' airs, and sharpened her pencils for
the scenes she proposed to sketch in her satirical album. Sunday could
not come soon en