it a point
to come; and as each of them entered, it seemed to Colonel and Mrs.
Sprowle that the lamps burned up with a more cheerful light, and that
the fiddles which sounded from the uncarpeted room were all half a tone
higher and half a beat quicker.

Mr. Bernard came in later than any of them; he had been busy with his
new duties. He looked well and that is saying a good deal; for nothing
but a gentleman is endurable in full dress. Hair that masses well,
a head set on with an air, a neckerchief tied cleverly by an easy,
practised hand, close-fitting gloves, feet well shaped and well
covered,--these advantages can make us forgive the odious sable
broadcloth suit, which appears to have been adopted by society on the
same principle that condemned all the Venetian gondolas to perpetual and
uniform blackness. Mr. Bernard, introduced by Mr. Geordie, made his
bow to the Colonel and his lady and to Miss Matilda, from whom he got
a particularly gracious curtsy, and then began looking about him
for acquaintances. He found two or three faces he knew,--many more
strangers. There was Silas Peckham,--there was no mistaking him; there
was the inelastic amplitude of Mrs. Peckham; few of the Apollinean
girls, of course, they not being recognized members of society,--but
there is one with the flame in her cheeks and the fire in her eyes, the
girl of vigorous tints and emphatic outlines, whom we saw entering the
schoolroom the other day. Old Judge Thornton has his eyes on her, and
the Colonel steals a look every now and then at the red brooch
which lifts itself so superbly into the light, as if he thought it a
wonderfully becoming ornament. Mr. Bernard himself was not displeased
with the general effect of the rich-blooded schoolgirl, as she stood
under the bright lamps, fanning herself in the warm, languid air, fixed
in a kind of passionate surprise at the new life which seemed to be
flowering out in her consciousness. Perhaps he looked at her somewhat
steadily, as some others had done; at any rate, she seemed to feel that
she was looked at, as people often do, and, turning her eyes suddenly
on him, caught his own on her face, gave him a half-bashful smile, and
threw in a blush involuntarily which made it more charming.

"What can I do better," he said to himself, "than have a dance with Rosa
Milburn?" So he carried his handsome pupil into the next room and took
his place with her in a cotillon. Whether the breath of the Goddess of
L