But Mildred--what was she doing or thinking all this time? To her the scene was entirely new; for though Mr and Miss Bloomfield probably attended county balls in their youth, they had not, for some years, so far deviated from the routine of their lives as to frequent any such assemblies. Besides, she had to encounter, what they certainly had not, the gaze of every eye as she passed, and the whispered exclamations of applause. But to have judged from her manner--from that delightful composure which always distinguished it, as free from insipidity as from trepidation or fluster, you would have thought her quite familiar with such scenes and such triumphs. Reflection supplied the place of experience. You saw that those clear blue eyes, from which she looked out with such a calm and keen inquiry, were by no means to be imposed on; that they detected at once the true meaning of the scene before her. She was solicited to dance, but neither the waltz nor the quadrille were at all enticing, and she contented herself with the part of spectator. Her chief amusement was derived from the novel physiognomies which the room presented; and indeed the assortment, comprising, as it did, a sprinkling of many nations--French and Belgian, English and German--was sufficiently varied. There were even two or three _lions_ of the first magnitude, who (judging from the supreme _hauteur_ with which they surveyed the scene) must have been imported from the patron capital of Paris. Lions, bearded magnificently--no mere luxuriance, or timid overgrowth of hair, but the genuine full black glossy beard--faces that might have walked out of Titian's canvass. Mildred would have preferred them in the canvass; they were much too sublime for the occasion. Then there were two or three young English _exquisites_, gliding about with that published modesty that proclaimed indifference, which seeks notoriety by the very graceful manner in which it seems struggling to avoid it. You see a smile upon their lips as they disengage themselves from the crowd, as if they rallied themselves for taking any share in the bustle or excitement of the scene; but that smile, be it understood, is by no means intended to escape detection.