towards the column,
affecting to watch the merry quadrille; but by a stratagem of the eye,
familiar to women, she lost not a gesture of the young man as she went
towards him. The stranger politely moved to make way for the newcomers,
and went to lean against another pillar. Emilie, as much nettled by his
politeness as she might have been by an impertinence, began talking to
her brother in a louder voice than good taste enjoined; she turned and
tossed her head, gesticulated eagerly, and laughed for no particular
reason, less to amuse her brother than to attract the attention of the
imperturbable stranger. None of her little arts succeeded. Mademoiselle
de Fontaine then followed the direction in which his eyes were fixed,
and discovered the cause of his indifference.

In the midst of the quadrille, close in front of them, a pale girl
was dancing; her face was like one of the divinities which Girodet has
introduced into his immense composition of French Warriors received by
Ossian. Emilie fancied that she recognized her as a distinguished milady
who for some months had been living on a neighboring estate. Her partner
was a lad of about fifteen, with red hands, and dressed in nankeen
trousers, a blue coat, and white shoes, which showed that the damsel's
love of dancing made her easy to please in the matter of partners.
Her movements did not betray her apparent delicacy, but a faint flush
already tinged her white cheeks, and her complexion was gaining color.
Mademoiselle de Fontaine went nearer, to be able to examine the young
lady at the moment when she returned to her place, while the side
couples in their turn danced the figure. But the stranger went up to the
pretty dancer, and leaning over, said in a gentle but commanding tone:

"Clara, my child, do not dance any more."

Clara made a little pouting face, bent her head, and finally smiled.
When the dance was over, the young man wrapped her in a cashmere shawl
with a lover's care, and seated her in a place sheltered from the wind.
Very soon Mademoiselle de Fontaine, seeing them rise and walk round
the place as if preparing to leave, found means to follow them under
pretence of admiring the views from the garden. Her brother lent himself
with malicious good-humor to the divagations of her rather eccentric
wanderings. Emilie then saw the attractive couple get into an elegant
tilbury, by which stood a mounted groom in livery. At the moment when,
from his high seat, the you