"She lives with Miss Benette, then, Charles?"
"Oh, no; for I asked her, and she said she wished she did. I should rather think somebody or other is unkind to her, for Miss Benette seems to pity her so much. Well, I was going to tell you, Millicent, she danced! Oh, it was beyond everything! You never saw anything so exquisite. I could hardly watch her about the room; she quite swam, and turned her eyes upward. She looked quite different from what she was at the class."
"I should think so. I have always heard that stage dancing is very fascinating, but I have never seen it, you know; and I do not think mother would like you to see her often, for she considers you too young to go to a theatre at all."
"Why should I be?"
"I don't know all her reasons, but the chief one I should suspect to be, is that it does not close until very late, and that the ballet is the last thing of all in the entertainment."
"Yes, I know the ballet. Laura does dance in the ballet, she told me so. But she danced in the daylight when I saw her, so there could be no harm in it."
"No harm! There is no harm in what is beautiful; but mother likes you to be fresh for everything you do in the daytime, and that cannot be unless you sleep early, no less than well. She asked me the other day whether I did not think you looked very pale the mornings after the classes."
"Oh, what did you say?"
"I said, 'He is always pale, dear mother, but he never looks so refreshed by any sleep as when he comes down those mornings, I think.'"
"Dear Millicent! you are so kind, I shall never forget it. Now do come and call upon Miss Benette."