“Nay,” said I, “in your absence would you have me glad? However, if Moore’s mythology be true--Beauty loves Folly the better for borrowing something from Reason; but, come, this is a place not for the grave, but the giddy. Let us join the waltzers.” “I am engaged.” “I know it! do you think I would dance with any woman who was not engaged?--there would be no triumph to one’s vanity in that case. Allons, ma belle, you must prefer me to an engagement;” and so saying, I led off my prize. Her intended partner was Mr. V--; just as we had joined the dancers, he spied us out, and approached with his long, serious, respectful face; the music struck up, and the next moment poor V. was very nearly struck down. Fraught with the most political spite, I whirled up against him; apologized with my blandest smile, and left him wiping his mouth, and rubbing his shoulder, the most forlorn picture of Hope in adversity, that can possibly be conceived. I soon grew wearied of my partner, and leaving her to fate, rambled into another room. There, seated alone, was Lady Roseville. I placed myself beside her; there was a sort of freemasonry between her and myself; each knew something more of the other than the world did, and we read his or her heart, by other signs than words. I soon saw that she was in no mirthful mood; so much the better--she was the fitter companion for a baffled aspirant like me. The room we were in was almost deserted, and finding ourselves uninterrupted, the stream of our conversation flowed into sentiment. “How little,” said Lady Roseville, “can the crowd know of the individuals who compose it. As the most opposite colours may be blended into one, and so lose their individual hues, and be classed under a single name, so every one here will go home, and speak of the ‘gay scene,’ without thinking for a moment how many breaking hearts may have composed it.” “I have often thought,” said I, “how harsh we are in our judgments of others--how often we accuse those persons of being worldly, who merely seem so to the world; who, for instance, that saw you in your brightest moments, would ever suppose that you could make the confession you have just made?”