128 A BALL ROOM, AND A BELLE. 



tietli part of one of her own jet black love-locks, but 

 that she wasfemme et coquette jusq aux ongles — said, 

 as she leaned on him for support : 



*' That was beautiful. Colonel Fairfax. Beautifully 

 done — Foi de Cheshire, you are a veritable preux che- 

 valier. And such a pretty, self-obliged bow too. You 

 don't know what that bow cost you. The softest blush, 

 and the most grateful glance, and the nicest curtsy 

 from the prettiest girl in England, so the gentlemen 

 call her." 



" Is she pretty ? I did not see her face at all, and 

 from her figure I did not fancy her a girl — a little en 

 embonpoint ; is she not ?" 



" Yes, perhaps so," said Ches, the fault of whose 

 tournure was the reverse of embonpoint, "• perhaps a 

 little ; but she is a girl, quite a girl, not above eighteen, 



and unappropriated too, as De R calls it. Yes, 



she is very pretty, but I suppose you would not think 

 so, for she is very blonde. Look at her now, she is 

 coming directly toward us." 



Turning quietly around, Fairfax saw her, and al- 

 most started, so extreme was his surprise and admira- 

 tion. If the figure were exquisite as seen from be- 

 hind, what was it in full face, a bust of ideal symmetry 

 such as no nymph or goddess ever wore in the Parian 

 of Praxiteles or Phidias, warm, palpitating, white as 

 snow, tinged with a faint sunset flush, intersected by 

 myriads of small sinuous veins of azure ; a waist to 

 be imagined not described, and then the downward 

 sweep of those most womanly outlines ; and the small 

 feet peering out timidly from beneath the hem of her 

 train 



Suggesting the more secret symmetry 



Of those fair forms, that terminate so well ; 



and then the face, the more than Corinthian capital of 



