To Marion's unaccustomed eye the whole party seemed like a set of second rate actors from the theatre, not calculated, by their aspect, to elicit very rapturous applauses, and she privately wondered they were not ashamed to look each other in the face when in so ridiculous a plight. Even Agnes, her own beautiful sister, looked very unlike Agnes! and she felt astonished to find that it might actually be possible to spend an hour in her company and not be admiring her, but in Marion's very private opinion, her appearance was now as if some sign post painter had done a resemblance of her sister in the very coarsest coloring, and in the most overdone style of dress and expression.
Agnes had a great deal to say, and no diffidence to prevent her saying it all, therefore she was now plunged into the midst of a very animated dialogue with Captain De Crespigny, talking with a look of conscious beauty and conscious success, in the only style she could talk, nonsense, and making a lavish expenditure of smiles, attitudes, and exclamations, to give herself the appearance of vivacity. Her hair was in a most disastrous state, and her complexion everything but what it should be, while her dress had so completely fallen off at the shoulders, that she might appropriately have sung her favorite air, "One struggle more and I am free."
The expression of Agnes' countenance became at once perfectly natural, when she turned round, and for the first time observed, with a start of genuine astonishment, that Marion was beside her, looking at the moment like some being of a better world, or like some graceful water lily rearing its pure and beautiful head above the turbid pool.
Marion glanced at her sister in a state of smiling embarrassment, as if desirous to claim her protection amidst a scene so new and strange, and taking possession, with a confiding look, of Agnes' arm, joy seemed rushing out of her bright animated eyes, and dimpling in her cheeks, when, under her sister's protection, she gazed around with an expression of timid amusement and curiosity.
"Marion, what mad freak is this?" exclaimed Agnes, with a hot red blush of angry surprise; "Patrick, do take her home!"
"Not till she has been my vis a vis in this quadrille, and then we must all disperse," replied Sir Patrick, with a boyish mischievous laugh, while noticing a haughty flash pass swiftly over the brow of Agnes; "I had difficulty enough in getting Marion to come at all, so she shall not escape me now. De Crespigny, have you engaged a partner?"
"If I had I would have strangled her!" replied Captain De Crespigny, with an admiring glance at Marion, who stood with her downcast eyes shaded with their long deep fringes, while an arch young smile played round her mouth, and dimpled her cheek.
"Will you then take the very great trouble of dancing with Marion?"
"I shall be too happy," replied he, throwing a world of expression into his fine animated eyes. "I shall do so with all my heart!"
"Marion, your old friend and cousin, Louis De Crespigny. Did you ever see such an ugly fellow?"