did not look upon it as any disgrace to take the exercise of swinging, during the months of August and September, when the castle was crowded with guests. The posts which supported the swing were a little decayed since the preceding year, but they were soon repaired. Madame D’Hernilly recommended prudence to the young people in partaking of this amusement, and, as an additional precaution, she took care to be present whenever they enjoyed it, and strictly ordered that no one should swing in her absence. They were prohibited standing upon the seat; neither were two persons allowed to get in at the same time; Ernestina, or Aglaé, or another of their friends, placed themselves by turns upon the seat, which was furnished with a soft cushion; and, while the one who took the exercise grasped the cords tightly with her two hands, two or three of her companions pulled the end of the cord, and thus made it go backward and forward.
Satiety would not have interrupted this amusement, but bad weather came on suddenly, and it was impossible for our young folks to frequent the garden. Thus thwarted in their favourite sport, they set their wits to work to find out some other agreeable pastime.
Adriana regretted the swing less than her play-fellows: a new doll, which had been
sent her from Paris, was her faithful companion; and, shall I add, the others envied her happiness? They contrived, however, to participate in it, for, under the sly pretence of amusing little Adriana, they made much of her doll. They took pains to dress her, to curl her hair nicely, and to put on her cap to the best advantage. They made dresses for her, and even pretty little rose-coloured silk slippers. In short, the doll’s drawers were soon completely filled with a very handsome wardrobe.
They were just beginning to tire of the amusement, which making the doll’s clothes had at first afforded them, when one morning, Aglaé, one of the young visitors, happening to open a book by chance, read aloud, that it was by trying the effects of the reflection and the refraction of the light through the fragile partitions of soap bubbles, that the great Newton had discovered the properties of the prism, and decomposed the rays of the sun.
Madame D’Hernilly expressed her admiration of this phenomenon in natural philosophy; but she did not understand the subject sufficiently to give her little auditors much information upon it. “But pray,” cried Adriana giddily, “why should we not try to make some discoveries ourselves, by blowing soap bubbles, they are so pretty?” “Oh fie,” cried the elder girls, very consequentially; but one of them immediately
added, “I remember to have read in La Fontaine, this excellent thought—‘Nothing is useless to people of sense.’”
“It is indeed a very just idea,” said Madame D’Hernilly, “and I think, my children, you will do well to take advantage of Adriana’s proposal.” The matter was then put to the vote, much in the same manner as they had learned from the newspapers, the national affairs are decided in the chamber of deputies. Ernestina, and one of the young visitors, ranged themselves on the left, to shew that they rejected a motion for playing at such a childish game; Adriana, and her companions, took the right side, and they were lucky enough to secure the support of the centre, of which Madame D’Hernilly was the only member; they had consequently a majority, and it was decided that they should play at blowing soap bubbles. “Who knows,” said Aglaé, smiling, “whether we shall not, like the illustrious Newton, make some new and great discovery.” This idea raised their impatience to begin, and luckily, the preparations for their experiment were soon made. A chambermaid brought some soap suds, rather thick in a china basin; Adriana chose among some little bits of straw, the one which suited best with her design, and slit the extremity in four parts, then dipped the end she had slit in the soap suds, and blew in the other extremity of the straw. Each blew in
her turn, and formed bubbles which reflected all the brilliant colours of the rainbow, but which, unfortunately, were as transient as they were beautiful.
Madame D’Hernilly astonished the young people very much, by explaining to them the process by which enamellers formed the balls of the thermometer: it is done by blowing through a glass tube, the extremity of which is made red hot, and softened by the fire of a lamp. She added, that they had adopted this method also in glass manufactories, and that goblets, bottles, in a word, almost all the utensils which we use in glass and crystal, are blown in a similar manner.