That folly and caprice suggest?
—Bernal.
Four years had flown by. All Washington had assembled at the grand gala ball, which celebrated the re-election of Gen. Jackson to the Presidential chair. From every part of the Union, wealth, beauty and talent seemed to meet in this common centre of attraction; and the family of Mr. Laverty, the rich Philadelphia merchant, formed one of the most important integers of the great unit, Fashion.
Amy was lovelier far, than when we saw her last. Every petal of the bud had unfolded—she was radiant as the very impersonation of beauty’s self—her mien was queen-like—her arched brow and forehead had been sung as the ebon bow of Cupid reposing on a tablet of alabaster. Amid the gay revel, every eye was turned upon her. Ladies pronounced her stiff and formal, while the gentlemen protested that “Venus, when she rose, fresh from the soft creation of the wave, was not more beautiful!”
Amy must have possessed charms of no common order, or this unanimity of the female censure would have been destroyed. Panegyric, on the part of gentlemen, is not so certain a criterion, for we have known Sheridan Knowles drawn upon for a comparison, as above, when Shakspeare’s “starved executors, the greedy crows,” would have been more apposite, and have heard Moore quoted—
Why doth azure deck the sky
But to be like thine eye of blue,
and applied to the veriest green gooseberry optics ever saw! Such comparisons, if not “odorous,” as Mrs. Malaprop would have them, are nevertheless generally picked from the most forced hot-beds in the garden of compliment, and loom large, like the sunflower, with a special care always to face about to the rising beams of the sun of riches or fashion.
“I believe, Miss Laverty, I have engaged the pleasure of your hand for the next set?” said the gay, noble and fine-looking Frank Pennant, coming up to the belle of the ball-room.
“Certainly, sir, with all my heart,” was the reply, as she rose.