ve you seen the primal dew ere the sun has lipped the pearl? Have you
seen a summer fly, with tinted wings of shifting light, glance in the
liquid noontide air? Have you marked a shooting star, or watched a young
gazelle at play? Then you have seen nothing fresher, nothing brighter,
nothing wilder, nothing lighter, than the girl who stands before you!
She was infinitely small, fair, and bright. Her black hair was braided
in Madonnas over a brow like ivory; a deep pure pink spot gave lustre
to each cheek. Her features were delicate beyond a dream! her nose quite
straight, with a nostril which would have made you crazy, if you had not
already been struck with idiocy by gazing on her mouth. She a singer!
Impossible! She cannot speak. And, now we look again, she must sing with
her eyes, they are so large and lustrous!

The Bird of Paradise curtsied as if she shrunk under the overwhelming
greeting, and crossed her breast with arms that gleamed like moonbeams
and hands that glittered like stars. This gave time to the _cognoscenti_
to remark her costume, which was ravishing, and to try to see her
feet; but they were too small. At last Lord Squib announced that he
had discovered them by a new glass, and described them as a couple of
diamond-claws most exquisitely finished.

She moved her head with a faint smile, as if she distrusted her powers
and feared the assembly would be disappointed, and then she shot forth
a note which thrilled through every heart and nearly cracked the
chandelier. Even Lady Fitz-pompey said 'Brava!' As she proceeded the
audience grew quite frantic. It was agreed on all hands that miracles
had recommenced. Each air was sung only to call forth fresh exclamations
of 'Miracolo!' and encores were as unmerciful as an usurper.

Amid all this rapture the young Duke was not silent. His box was on the
stage; and ever and anon the syren shot a glance which seemed to tell
him that he was marked out amid this brilliant multitude. Each round of
applause, each roar of ravished senses, only added a more fearful action
to the wild purposes which began to flit about his Grace's mind. His
imagination was touched. His old passion to be distinguished returned
in full force. This creature was strange, mysterious, celebrated. Her
beauty, her accomplishments, were as singular and as rare as her destiny
and her fame. His reverie absolutely raged; it was only disturbed by her
repeated notice and his returned acknowledgments. He