My first season, like that of every girl who is admired and danced with a great deal, was glorified by illusions, chief among which was that the men who danced with me as they could every night did honestly adore me. We learn afterwards how much and how little those triumphs mean; that new faces are liked simply because they are new; and that girls are danced with because they are the fashion and dance well. I am not boasting—I was admired; and papa was in high good-humour and spirits. There is sunshine even in that region; like winter suns, bright but cold. Such as it is, let the birds of that enchanted forest enjoy it while it lasts; flutter their wings and sing in its sheen, for it may not be for long.
CHAPTER XXX.
the knight of the black castle.
y readings with Mr. Carmel totally ceased; in fact, there was no time for any but that one worship which now absorbed me altogether. Every now and then, however, he was in London, and mamma, in the drawing-room, used at times to converse with him, in so low a tone, so earnestly and so long, that I used to half suspect her of making a shrift, and receiving a whispered absolution. Mamma, indeed, stood as it were with just one foot upon the very topmost point of our "high church," ready to spread her wings, and to float to the still more exalted level of the cross on the dome of St. Peter's. But she always hesitated when the moment for making the aërial ascent arrived, and was still trembling in her old attitude on her old pedestal.
I don't think mamma's theological vagaries troubled papa. Upon all such matters he talked like a good-natured Sadducee; and if religion could have been carried on without priests, I don't think he would have objected to any of its many forms.