To my utter astonishment I was asked to join in the next quadrille by Lord Thornborough, whose politeness I should not have supposed from any thing else I had witnessed, could have induced the remembrance of a country lass, and a stranger (though the latter is the highest claim to attention in my dear Ireland), amidst such dazzling beauty and attraction as solicited his regards. You see I did him injustice, and am ready to make the _amende honorable_; but as I had refused Mr. Johnson, I could not dance with any one else, and though I did not regret this circumstance from any admiration of _milord_, I confess to having found it difficult to sit still, when the gloomy contemplations with which the evening commenced, began to yield to the inspiring influence of lively music. I had, however, the great pleasure of seeing Charlotte enjoying a gratification which was denied to me; and, would you believe it, she had scarcely begun to move, when a crowd was collected to see her dance. Her figure is so like what one imagines of a Sylph, and her ear is so perfect, that to admire her performance in a quadrille, would appear nothing more than the necessary routine of cause and effect, if I had not believed the group by which we were surrounded quite too artificial in its construction to leave a corner for nature to slide in at. However, so it was, that I heard several of the gentlemen express their approbation in terms more energetic than I should have thought such indolent looking people likely to employ on any occasion, _even_ of the moment; and dear unconscious Charlotte seemed for a time _Reine de la fête_. “Yes,” said Mr. Bolton, who came to sit by me for a little while, “_there_ is the triumph of truth and native grace over all the contrivances of fashion. There is your sister, who has never seen London or Paris, bearing away the palm from all those painted dolls who are swinging their persons round the room.” Quadrilles ended, how shall I express my feelings at seeing Lady Campion and Lord Thornborough get up to waltz! Timanthes, a painter of ancient times, drew a veil over the face of a father whose grief he felt unequal to pourtray. I must borrow his device, and let a curtain fall over an exhibition which I wish obliterated from my memory. I found a few lines by Frederick, which he wrote in London, after returning from a ball, part of the concluding stanza of which shall finish my descant upon this distasteful theme: “But there is something in a waltz which wears Off all the lovely bloom of virgin grace, When round Belinda’s form a stranger dares Fling the unhallowed arm in bold embrace, And rudely gazes on her beauteous face.”