I construed this remark, though made at the expense of her brother, as a compliment to myself, and soon gained her smiles, by many sarcasms which I levelled at pedants, scholars and students. Without professing flattery, I pleased her by a ready acquiescence of sentiment and opinion; and anticipating her pride of sex and her tenderness of heart, I lauded in the richest language of quotation, woman's love, and woman's constancy. The artlessness of her character, and the simplicity of her nature, could not hide from my vanity the favorable impression I had made on her heart. I looked on my victim with some emotions of pity, and paused for a moment under the goading sting of conscience; yet the fiend-like passion which rioted on my life, told me that the ruin of her peace, and the destruction of her happiness, would be the proudest victory which my hate could achieve. Leaving her for a few moments, I looked around at the mirthful throng which filled the room, and sauntered to the _bar_, which was a point where conversation converged its focus. About a table prodigally ornamented with decanters and glasses, were collected numerous groups of young men, who were all talking at the same time on beauty, horseracing, politics and duelling. Here and there a solitary tobacco chewer might be seen, stealing to some fire place or window, and enjoying in mute rapture, the filth, excitement and grossness of his depraved appetite. Two or three youthful legislators from the adjoining counties, were flaunting their maiden honors in the broad light of political vanity--while four elderly gentlemen, in embroidered waistcoats and fair-top boots, were eloquently deprecating the onward march of democracy, which made the legislature a mob of demagogues, and the ball room a collection of fine clothes and vulgarity. This was my uncle's favorite theme, and from the folly of such croaking aristocracy, common sense and not education had delivered me. An aged negro, the "harmonious Phillips" of the country, dressed in the ample costume of the old school, with a powdered head, a large knob of watch seals, and a silver ship in his bosom, controlled with fierce tyranny his partners of the bow, fife and triangle. Bowing almost to the floor, he would ever and anon cry out in a magisterial tone, _cross over_--_forward_--_turn your partners_--_done_, and catching the inspiration of catgut and rosin, his ivory teeth were displayed like the keys of a piano-forte, while his broad face fairly laughed itself into ecstasy. At the conclusion of the ball, I became the solitary escort of Miss Pilton. The moon was shining coldly and brightly over the world; and when I was about to leave my fair charge, looking up she exclaimed, "How beautiful!--how melancholy!--it makes me almost a poetess. What a contrast to the busy crowd we have just left; oh! that human life was as cloudless, and human love as pure!"