"I do not want any supper," I answer, petulantly, turning the back of my head and all my powdered curls toward him; "I never eat supper at a ball; I like to stand here; I like to watch the people--to watch Barbara!" This at least is true. To see Barbara dance has always given, and does even now give, me the liveliest satisfaction. No one holds her head so prettily as Barbara; no one moves so smoothly, and with so absolutely innocent a gayety. The harshest, prudishest adversary of valsing, were he to see Barbara valse, would be converted to thinking it the most modest of dances. Mr. Musgrave is turning away. Just as he is doing so, an idea strikes me. Perhaps they are in the supper-room. "After all," say I, unceremoniously, and forgetting for the moment who it is that I am addressing, "I do not mind if I do have something; I--I--am rather hungry." I put my hand on his arm, and we walk off. The supper-room is rather full--(when, indeed, was a supper-room known to be empty?)--some people are sitting--some standing--it is therefore a little difficult to make out who is here, and who is not. In total absolute forgetfulness of the supposed cause that has brought me here, I stand eagerly staring about, under people's arms--over their shoulders. So far, I do not see them. I am recalled by Mr. Musgrave's voice, coldly polite. "Will not you sit down?" "No, thank you," reply I, bending my neck back to get a view behind an intervening group; "I had rather stand." "Are you looking for any one?" Again, I wish that I did not know his voice so well--that I did not so clearly recognize that slightly guardedly malicious intonation. "Looking for any one?" I cry, sharply, and reddening even through my rouge--"of course not!--whom should I be looking for?--but, after all, I do not think I care about having any thing!--there's--there's nothing that I fancy." This is a libel at once upon myself and on General Parker's hospitality. He answers nothing, and perhaps the smile, almost imperceptible--which I fancy in his eyes, and in the clean curve of his lips--exists only in my imagination. He again offers me his arm, and I again take it. I have clean forgotten his existence. His arm is no more to me than if it were a piece of wood. "Where are they? where can they be?" is the thought that engrosses all my attention.