o are they?" and the universal answer
was, "Can't tell,--never saw them before!"

Our strangers seemed by no means displeased with the evident and
immediate impression they had made. They stood in the most conspicuous
part of the room, enjoying among themselves a low conversation,
frequently broken by fits of laughter,--tokens, we need not add, of
their supereminently good breeding. The handsome figure of the youngest
stranger, and the simple and seemingly unconscious grace of his
attitudes were not, however, unworthy of the admiration he excited; and
even his laughter, rude as it really was, displayed so dazzling a set
of teeth, and was accompanied by such brilliant eyes, that before he
had been ten minutes in the room there was scarcely a young lady under
thirty-nine not disposed to fall in love with him.

Apparently heedless of the various remarks which reached their ears, our
strangers, after they had from their station sufficiently surveyed the
beauties of the ball, strolled arm-in-arm through the rooms. Having
sauntered through the ball and card rooms, they passed the door that
led to the entrance passage, and gazed, with other loiterers, upon the
new-comers ascending the stairs. Here the two younger strangers renewed
their whispered conversation, while the eldest, who was also the tallest
one, carelessly leaning against the wall, employed himself for a few
moments in thrusting his fingers through his hair. In finishing this
occupation, the peculiar state of his rules forced itself upon the
observation of our gentleman, who, after gazing for some moments on an
envious rent in the right ruffle, muttered some indistinct words, like
"the cock of that confounded pistol," and then tucked up the mutilated
ornament with a peculiarly nimble motion of the fingers of his left
hand; the next moment, diverted by a new care, the stranger applied his
digital members to the arranging and caressing of a remarkably splendid
brooch, set in the bosom of a shirt the rude texture of which formed
a singular contrast with the magnificence of the embellishment and the
fineness of the one ruffle suffered by our modern Hyperion to make
its appearance beneath his cinnamon-coloured coatsleeve. These little
personal arrangements completed, and a dazzling snuff-box released from
the confinement of a side-pocket, tapped thrice, and lightened of two
pinches of its titillating luxury, the stranger now, with the guardian
eye of friendship, direct