At this moment the music began, and the men came forward to ask my little neighbors to dance. They accepted languidly, with a half-indifferent air. The gentlemen placed their opera-hats on the chairs the ladies had left, and they all advanced, talking, to join the dancers. I followed them with my eyes through the crowd. Each abandoned herself with charming grace to her partner's arm, turning her head a little to one side, her hair floating on the waves of the waltz. Perhaps there was exaggerated ease and a trace of childish awkwardness in their manner. In ten minutes they came back to their places, out of breath, but with bright eyes. They took up their fans again, and while fanning themselves went on with their conversation. "That gentleman dances very well, but he's a queer creature: he talked to me about geography. Do you know the principal town in the department of the Eastern Pyrenees?" "No I have forgotten. Dear me! how warm I am! I danced with that partner of yours the other evening: he talked about geography to me too. Isn't it strange that some partners always say the same thing over and over again?" "Oh, there is mamma making me a sign that it is time to go home. Oh dear! no indeed! It will be like the other evening, when we should have gone to bed as early as the hens if mamma hadn't been asked for the German. Tell your cousin to ask mamma to dance, and to ask me. I like him very much: he at least makes you laugh, even if you don't understand very well what he is talking about. He seems sometimes to be making fun of you, but that's no matter: he's very nice; and then, too, he holds you firmly while dancing, so that you feel perfectly comfortable." * * * * * Toward two o'clock in the morning, after having looked through M. de B.'s collection of etchings and played a game of whist, I returned to my station behind the three girls. Two were bravely drinking a glass of claret, and the third a cup of chocolate. They were laughing so loud while leaning back in their chairs, and so talking all together, that I could scarcely catch what they said, but I saw by their loosened hair and the brilliancy of their eyes, and their feverish agitation, that they had not wasted their time. Their mothers, who were quite as animated, had collected together, and three or four gentlemen had gathered round them saying a thousand charming bits of nonsense. The gayety had become so fast and furious in that corner that I despaired of hearing anything more, so I went back to the ante-chamber. What charming women my adorable little girls will have become in a few years!