Now, they are many of them happy, all interested. Even those who are troublesome and subject to violent excitement in every-day scenes, show here that the power of self-control is not lost, only lessened. Give them an impulse strong enough, favorable circumstances, and they will begin to use it again. They regulate their steps to music; they restrain their impatient impulses from respect to themselves and to others. The Power which shall yet shape order from all disorder, and turn ashes to beauty, as violets spring up from green graves, hath them also in its keeping. The party were well dressed, with care and taste. The dancing was better than usual, because there was less of affectation and ennui. The party was more entertaining, because native traits came out more clear from the disguises of vanity and tact. There was the blue-stocking lady, a mature belle and bel-esprit. Her condescending graces, her rounded compliments, her girlish, yet "highly intellectual" vivacity, expressed no less in her head-dress than her manner, were just that touch above the common with which the illustrator of Dickens has thought fit to heighten the charms of Mrs. Leo Hunter. There was the travelled Englishman, _au fait_ to every thing beneath the moon and beyond. With his clipped and glib phrases, his bundle of conventionalities carried so neatly under his arm, and his "My dear sir," in the perfection of cockney dignity, what better could the most select dinner party furnish us in the way of distinguished strangerhood? There was the hoidenish young girl, and the decorous, elegant lady smoothing down "the wild little thing." There was the sarcastic observer on the folly of the rest; in that, the greatest fool of all, unbeloved and unloving. In contrast to this were characters altogether lovely, full of all sweet affections, whose bells, if jangled out of tune, still retained their true tone. One of the best things of the evening was a dance improvised by two elderly women. They asked the privilege of the floor, and, a suitable measure being played, performed this dance in a style lively, characteristic, yet moderate enough. It was true dancing, like peasant dancing. An old man sang comic songs in the style of various nations and characters, with a dramatic expression that would have commanded applause "on any stage." And all was done decently and in order, each biding his time. Slight symptoms of impatience here and there were easily soothed by the approach of this, truly "good physician," the touch of whose hand seemed to possess a talismanic power to soothe. We doubt not that all went to their beds exhilarated, free from irritation, and more attuned to concord than before. Good bishop Valentine! thy feast was well kept, and not without the usual jokes and flings at old bachelors, the exchange of sugar-plums, mottoes, and repartees.