As for the King, who was ignorant of the particular circumstances which rendered Fenella’s performance almost marvellous, he was contented, at her first commencement, to authorise what seemed to him the frolic of this singular-looking damsel, by a good-natured smile, but when he perceived the exquisite truth and justice, as well as the wonderful combination of grace and agility, with which she executed to this favourite air a dance which was perfectly new to him, Charles turned his mere acquiescence into something like enthusiastic applause. He bore time to her motions with the movement of his foot--applauded with head and with hand--and seemed, like herself, carried away by the enthusiasm of the gestic art. After a rapid yet graceful succession of _entrechats_, Fenella introduced a slow movement, which terminated the dance; then dropping a profound courtesy, she continued to stand motionless before the King, her arms folded on her bosom, her head stooped, and her eyes cast down, after the manner of an Oriental slave; while through the misty veil of her shadowy locks, it might be observed, that the colour which exercise had called to her cheeks was dying fast away, and resigning them to their native dusky hue. “By my honour,” exclaimed the King, “she is like a fairy who trips it in moonlight. There must be more of air and fire than of earth in her composition. It is well poor Nelly Gwyn saw her not, or she would have died of grief and envy. Come, gentlemen, which of you contrived this pretty piece of morning pastime?” The courtiers looked at each other, but none of them felt authorised to claim the merit of a service so agreeable. “We must ask the quick-eyed nymph herself then,” said the King; and, looking at Fenella, he added, “Tell us, my pretty one, to whom we owe the pleasure of seeing you?--I suspect the Duke of Buckingham; for this is exactly a _tour de son métier_.” Fenella, on observing that the King addressed her, bowed low, and shook her head, in signal that she did not understand what he said. “Oddsfish, that is true,” said the King; “she must perforce be a foreigner--her complexion and agility speak it. France or Italy has had the moulding of those elastic limbs, dark cheek, and eye of fire.” He then put to her in French, and again in Italian, the question, “By whom she had been sent hither?” At the second repetition, Fenella threw back her veiling tresses, so as to show the melancholy which sat on her brow; while she sadly shook her head, and intimated by imperfect muttering, but of the softest and most plaintive kind, her organic deficiency.