“It is not French, it is Moorish; it is called the Tangerine,” said Theodora to her surrounding votaries. “You begin with a circle.” “But how are we to dance without the music?” said Lady Montairy. “Ah! I wish I had known this,” said Theodora, “before dinner, and I think I could have dotted down something that would have helped us. But let me see,” and she went up to the eminent professor, with whom she was well acquainted, and said, “Signor Ricci, it begins so,” and she hummed divinely a fantastic air, which, after a few moments’ musing, he reproduced; “and then it goes off into what they call in Spain a saraband. Is there a shawl in the room?” “My mother has always a shawl in reserve,” said Bertram, “particularly when she pays visits to houses where there are galleries;” and he brought back a mantle of Cashmere. “Now, Signor Ricci,” said Mrs. Campian, and she again hummed an air, and moved forward at the same time with brilliant grace, waving at the end the shawl. The expression of her countenance, looking round to Signor Ricci, as she was moving on to see whether he had caught her idea, fascinated Lothair. “It is exactly what I told you,” said Lord Carisbrooke, “and, I can assure you, it is the only dance now. I am very glad I remembered it.” “I see it all,” said Signor Ricci, as Theodora rapidly detailed to him the rest of the figure. “And at any rate it will be the Tangerine with variations.” “Let me have the honor of being your partner in this great enterprise,” said Lothair; “you are the inspiration of Muriel.” “Oh! I am very glad I can do any thing, however slight, to please you and your friends. I like them all; but particularly Lady Corisande.” A new dance in a country-house is a festival of frolic grace. The incomplete knowledge, and the imperfect execution, are themselves causes of merry excitement, in their contrast with the unimpassioned routine and almost unconscious practice of traditionary performances. And gay and frequent were the bursts of laughter from the bright and airy band who were proud to be the scholars of Theodora. The least successful among them was perhaps Lord Carisbrooke. “Princess Metternich must have taught you wrong, Carisbrooke,” said Hugo Bohun. They ended with a waltz, Lothair dancing with Miss Arundel. She accepted his offer to take some tea on its conclusion. While they were standing at the table, a little withdrawn from the others, and he holding a sugar-basin, she said in a low voice, looking on her cup and not at him, “the cardinal is vexed about the early celebration; he says it should have been at midnight.” “I am sorry he is vexed,” said Lothair. “He was going to speak to you himself,” continued Miss Arundel; “but he felt a delicacy about it. He had thought that your common feelings respecting the Church might have induced you if not to consult, at least to converse, with him on the subject; I mean as your guardian.”