"I beg a thousand apologies; but I had forgotten to mention that we have a small dance this evening, chiefly foreign, and, as you may perceive, they keep early hours," said Jessica, rising to receive them. "They are French, and emigrants," added Mordecai. "All is over with them and theirs in France, and they have made the best of their way to England, therein acting more wisely than those who have stayed behind. I know France well; the '_tigre-singe_,' as their countryman described them. These unfortunates have been consigned to me by my correspondents, like so many bales of silks, or barrels of Medoc. But here they come." I certainly was not prepared for the names which I now heard successively announced. Instead of the moderate condition from which I had supposed Mordecai and his pretty daughter, aspiring as she was, to have chosen their society, I found myself in a circle of names of which the world had been talking since I was in my cradle, if not for a dozen centuries before. I was in the midst of dukes, counts, and chevaliers, maréchals and marchionesses, the patrons and patronesses of the Marmontels and D'Alemberts, the charm of the Du Deffand _soirées_, and the originals for the charming piquancies and exquisite impertinences of L'Espinasse, and the _coterieisme_ of Paris. All that I had seen of the peerage of our haughty country was dim and dull to the gay glitter of the crowd around me. Nature never moulded two national characters so distinct in all points, but the French exterior carries all before it. Diamonds and decorations sparkled on every side. The dresses of the women were as superb as if they had never known fear or flight; and the conversation was as light, sportive, and _badinant_, as if we were all waiting in the antechamber of Versailles till the chamberlain of Marie Antoinette should signify the royal pleasure to receive us. Here was stateliness to the very summit of human pride, but it was softened by the taste of its display; the most easy familiarity, yet guarded by the most refined distinctions The _bon-mot_ was uttered with such natural avoidance of offence, and the arch allusion was so gracefully applied, that the whole gave me the idea of a new use of language. They were _artistes_ of conversation, professors of a study of society, as much as painters might be of the style of the Bolognese or the Venetian school. I was delighted, but I was still more deeply interested; for the chief topics of the evening were those on which public curiosity was most anxiously alive at the moment--the hazards of the revolutionary tempest, which they had left raging on the opposite shore. Yet, "Vive la France!" we had our cotillon, and our songs to harp and piano, notwithstanding the shock of governments.