But there was one among that gay assemblage, who must not be passed over with so slight a regard, since she attracted on that festive day, as much of wondering admiration for her unequalled beauties as she excited sympathy, and fear, in after-days, for her sad fortunes--but there was now no cloud upon her radiant beauty, no dimness prophetic of approaching tears in her large laughing eyes, no touch of melancholy thought upon one glorious feature--Marguerite de Vaudreuil, the heiress of a ducal fortune, the heiress of charms so surpassing, that rank and fortune were forgotten by all who gazed upon her pure, high brow, her dazzling glances, her seductive smile, the perfect symmetry of her whole shape and person! Her hair, of the darkest auburn shade, fell in a thousand ringlets, glittering out like threads of virgin gold when a stray sunbeam touched them, fell down her snowy neck over the shapely shoulders and so much of a soft, heaving bosom--veined by unnumbered azure channels, wherein the pure blood coursed so joyously--as was displayed by the falling laces which decked her velvet boddice. Her eyes, so quick and dazzling was their light, almost defied description, possessing at one time the depth and brilliance of the black, melting into the softer languor of the blue--yet they were of the latter hue, and suited truly to the whole style and character of her voluptuous beauty. Her form, as has been noticed, was symmetry itself; and every movement, every step, was fraught with natural and unstudied grace. In sooth, she seemed almost too beautiful for mere mortality--and so thought many a one who gazed upon her, half drunk with that divine delirium which steeps the souls of men who dwell too steadfastly upon such wondrous charms, as she bounded through the labyrinth of the dance, lighter and springier than the world-famed gazelle, or rested from the exciting toil in panting abandonment upon some cushioned settle! and many inquired of themselves, could it be possible that an exterior so divine should be the tenement of a harsh, worldly spirit--that a demeanor and an air so frank, so cordial, and so warm, should be but the deceptive veil that hid a selfish, cold, bad heart. Ay, many asked themselves that question on that day, but not one answered his own question candidly or truly--no! not one man!--for in her presence he had been more or less than mortal, who could pronounce his sentence unmoved by the attractions of her outward seeming.