THE COTTAGE LIBRARY. 215 



Emily broke even partially through the half transparent cloud, 

 it dissolved in an instant the half-formed ice of her husband's 

 manner. By mutual consent the subject of the fancy ball 

 seemed left in abeyance, and while in every circle, for miles 

 round, it formed the central topic, in ours it was the theme 

 forbid. Thence we tried to infer that it was a matter aban- 

 doned, and that Emily's better judgment, if not her good 

 feeling, had determined her to give up her own liking, on 

 this the very first occasion on which, we believe, her husband 

 has ever thwarted it. 



Well whether, as with us, awaited in silence, or, as with 

 the many, harbingered by the music of many voices the grand 

 event marched on ; and a day was only wanted of its expected 

 arrival, when business called F to London, from whence he 

 was not to return till late at night. Soon after his departure, 

 which followed an early breakfast, we left Emily, as we 

 supposed, to the business of her little household, and repaired, 

 as was our wont, to the library, a small apartment which our 

 friend F had made the very bijou of his pretty cottage. 

 Having taken down a choice copy of the Faery Queen, we com- 

 mitted our person to an ebony arm-chair, and our spirit to the 

 magic guidance of our author's fancy. Obedient to its leading, we 

 were careering somewhere betwixt earth and heaven, when a 

 slight noise brought us down for a moment to our proper 

 sphere ; yet hardly, for on looking up we beheld, standing in 

 the wake of a coloured sunbeam, from which, on wings of gos- 

 samer, she seemed to have just descended, an unexpected 

 apparition of surpassing grace and beauty. Titania's self, just 

 stepped upon the moonlit earth, could scarcely have stood 

 poised on an unbroken flower-stalk, in form more airy, in atti- 

 tude more graceful, with countenance more radiant than those 

 of Emily F , as, arrayed in likeness of the Faery Queen, she 

 thus burst upon our view, and with an air half archly playful, 

 half proudly triumphant, enjoyed our bewildered surprise, and 

 received the involuntary homage of our admiration. 



