They were received with a tremendous round of applause from the audience; but, with the exception of a little more elegance in the four who led the dance, they were dressed nearly alike; and as I saw no particularly conspicuous figure, I presumed that Taglioni had not yet appeared. The splendor of the spectacle bewildered me for the first moment or two, but I presently found my eyes rivetted to a childish creature floating about among the rest, and, taking her for some beautiful young _elève_ making her first essays in the chorus, I interpreted her extraordinary fascination as a triumph of nature over my unsophisticated taste; and wondered to myself whether, after all, I should be half so much captivated with the show of skill I expected presently to witness. _This was Taglioni!_ She came forward directly, in a _pas seul_, and I then observed that her dress was distinguished from that of her companions by its extreme modesty both of fashion and ornament, and the unconstrained ease with which it adapted itself to her shape and motion. She looks not more than fifteen. Her figure is small, but rounded to the very last degree of perfection; not a muscle swelled beyond the exquisite outline; not an angle, not a fault. Her back and neck, those points so rarely beautiful in woman, are faultlessly formed; her feet and hands are in full proportion to her size, and the former play as freely and with as natural a yieldingness in her fairy slippers, as if they were accustomed only to the dainty uses of a drawing-room. Her face is most strangely interesting; not quite beautiful, but of that half-appealing, half-retiring sweetness that you sometimes see blended with the secluded reserve and unconscious refinement of a young girl just "out" in a circle of high fashion. In her greatest exertions her features retain the same timid half smile, and she returns to the alternate by-play of her part without the slightest change of color, or the slightest perceptible difference in her breathing, or in the ease of her look and posture. No language can describe her motion. She swims in your eye like a curl of smoke, or a flake of down. Her difficulty seems to be to keep to the floor. You have the feeling while you gaze upon her, that, if she were to rise and float away like Ariel, you would scarce be surprised. And yet all is done with such a childish unconsciousness of admiration, such a total absence of exertion or fatigue, that the delight with which she fills you is unmingled; and, assured as you are by the perfect purity of every look and attitude, that her hitherto spotless reputation is deserved beyond a breath of suspicion, you leave her with as much respect as admiration; and find with surprise that a dancing girl, who is exposed night after night to the profaning gaze of the world, has crept into one of the most sacred niches of your memory. * * * * *