CHAPTER XXIX.
my bouquet.
remember so vividly the night of my first ball. The excitement of the toilet; mamma's and the maid's consultations and debates; the tremulous anticipations; the "pleasing terror;" the delightful, anxious flutter, and my final look in the tall glass. I hardly knew myself. I gazed at myself with the irrepressible smile of elation. I never had looked so well. There are degrees of that delightful excitement that calls such tints to girlish cheeks, and such fires to the eyes, as visit them no more in our wiser after-life. The enchantment wanes, and the flowers and brilliants fade and we soon cease to see them. I went down to the drawing-room to wait for mamma. The candles were lighted, and whom should I find there but Mr. Carmel?
"I asked your mamma's leave to come and see you dressed for your first ball," he said. "How very pretty it all is!"
He surveyed me, smiling with a melancholy pride, it seemed to me, in my good looks and brilliant dress.