"Non contingit cuique ad ire Corinthum!" we cannot all have our "loges" at the "Grand Opéra;" and happy for us it is so, or what would become of the pleasure we derive from third, fourth, and fifth rate performances elsewhere? True, indeed, if truffles were a necessary of life, there would be a vast amount of inconvenience and suffering. Now, Mademoiselle Héloïse, whose pirouettes were no more minded in Paris, nor singled out for peculiar favor, than one of the lamps in the row of footlights, was a kind of small idol in the Havana. She had the good fortune to live in an age when the heels take precedence of the head, and she shared in the enthusiasm by which certain people in our day would bring back the heathen mythology for the benefit of the corps de ballet. Alas for fame! in the very climax of her glory she grew fat! Now, flesh to a danseuse is like cowardice to a soldier, or shame to a lawyer,--it is the irreconcilable quality. The gauzy natures who float to soft music must not sup. Every cutlet costs an "entrechat"! Hard and terrible condition of existence, and proving how difficult and self-denying a thing it is to be an angel, even in this world! So much for Mademoiselle Héloise; and if the reader be weary of her, so was I. "You'll have to treat her to a supper," whispered Falkoner, as he passed me. "I've not a cent in my purse," said I, thinking it better to tell the truth than incur the reproach of stinginess. "Never mind, take mine," said he, as he dropped a very weighty purse into my coat-pocket, and moved away before I could make any answer. Perhaps the greatest flattery an individual can receive is to win some acknowledgment of confidence from an utter stranger. To know that by the chance intercourse of a few minutes you have so impressed another, who never saw you before, that he is impelled at once to befriend you, your self-esteem, so pleasantly gratified, immediately re-acts upon the cause, and you are at a loss whether most to applaud your own good gifts, or the ready wittedness of him who appreciated them so instantaneously. I was still hesitating, revolving, doubtless, the pleasant sense of flattery aforesaid, when Falkoner came flying past with his partner. "Order supper for four," cried he, as he whizzed by. "What does he say, mon cher Comte?" said my partner. I translated his command, and found that the notion pleased her vastly. The dining-room by this time had been metamorphosed into a kind of coffee-room, with small supper-tables, at which parties were already assembling; and here we now took our places, to con over the bill of fare, and discuss scalloped oysters, cold lobster, devilled haddock, and other like delicacies.