While the repining Agnes followed Ellen, in imagination, to scenes which appeared to her fancy like the dazzling pictures described in the Arabian Nights, let us enter the ball-room and follow the footsteps of her, whose favoured lot led her through the enchanted land. The hall was brilliantly lighted, the music was of the most animating kind, airy forms floated on the gaze, most elaborately and elegantly adorned, and in the midst of these Ellen shone transcendent. For a while, her enjoyment realized even the dreams of Agnes. Conscious of being admired, she glided through the dance, gracefully holding her flowing drapery, smiling, blushing, coquetting and flirting. Compliments were breathed continually into her ears. She was compared to the sylphs, the graces, the muses, the houris, and even to the angels that inhabit the celestial city. Yes; this daughter of fashion, this devotee of pleasure, this vain and thoughtless being, who lived without God in the world, was told by flattering lips, that she resembled those pure and glorified spirits which surround the throne of the Most High, and sing the everlasting song of Moses and the Lamb--and she believed it. Perhaps some may assert that the daughters of fashion are not always forgetful of their God, for they are often heard to call upon his great and holy name, in a moment of sudden astonishment or passion, and were a saint to witness their uplifted eyes and clasped hands, he might deem them wrapt in an ecstasy of devotion. Ellen, in the midst of almost universal homage, began to feel dissatisfied and weary. There was one who had been in the train of her admirers, himself the star of fashion, who was evidently offering incense at a new shrine. A fair young stranger, who seemed a novice in the splendid scene, drew him from her side, and from that moment the adulation of others ceased to charm. She danced more gayly, she laughed more loudly, to conceal the mortification and envy that was spreading through her heart; but the triumph, the joy was over. She began to feel a thousand inconveniences, of whose existence she seemed previously unconscious. Her feet ached from the lightness of her slippers, her respiration was difficult from the tightness of her dress; she was glad when the hour of her departure arrived. Warm from the exercise of the dance, and panting from fatigue, she stood a few moments on the pavement, waiting for some obstructions to be removed in the way of the carriage. The ground was covered with a sheet of snow, which had fallen during the evening, and made a chill bed for her feet, so ill defended from the inclement season. The night air blew damp and cold on her neck and shoulders, for her cloak was thrown loosely around her, that her beauty might not be entirely veiled, till the gaze of admiration was withdrawn.