"Yes; I have it from his own lips. She has given up her music teaching—a calling that she followed more from her love of independence and usefulness, than from any necessity to do so—in view of her marriage with the doctor."
"Well, I'm astonished! I must own, however, that he is a man of taste and good sense."
"In which I perfectly agree with you."
The two men separated, and Doctor B— passed on to another part of the room. When cotillions were formed, Doctor B— led out Ella, and danced the first set with her.
"How gracefully she moves," remarked Mrs. Baldwin to Clara, who had declined dancing, she having her own reasons for wishing to keep beside her mother. "I wonder who she is? Nobody that I have asked knows her."
"What makes you notice her so particularly, mother?" asked Clara. "There are many other young ladies in the room whom you have never seen before. And some quite as beautiful as she is."
"But none with just such a face. It is so youthful and innocent, yet so womanlike in its tone. Several times I have found her eyes fixed intently upon me, with an expression that I felt, but could not understand. There are others as handsome, and few who do not make a more brilliant appearance; but none who have such a natural, unconscious grace."
"Really, mother," said Clara, smiling, "you have grown an enthusiast. If you were a young man, I think this would be a case of love at first sight."
"If I were a young man, and about to fall in love at first sight with any one in this room, it would be with her," said the mother, smiling in return.
"I saw Edward sitting by her side a little while ago, and looking into her face as if he had forgotten that there was anybody else in the room."