"I am glad to hear it," said Mrs. Castleton, graciously, as if she felt her dancing a personal compliment. And before the dance was over she had introduced half a dozen young men to her.
Feeling herself a decided belle, Miss Dawson was in high spirits (that trying test to an unrefined woman.) She considered Mrs. Castleton's visit and invitation as a marked compliment, (as she had every right to do,) and her attentions now, and the admiration she received, excited her to even more than her ordinary animation, which was always, to say the least of it, sufficient. She laughed, and she talked, and shook her long curls about, and flirted in a style that made the ladies look, and the gentlemen smile. Moreover, Mr. Hardwicks, who knew no one else, (for Mrs. Castleton had no idea of forcing him on any of her friends,) never left her side; and the easy manner in which he spoke to her, and took her fan from her hand while she was talking, and even touched her sleeve to call her attention when her head was turned away, all of which she seemed to think quite natural, made Harry color, and bite his lip more than once with mortification and vexation.
"You are not going to waltz?" he said, justly distrusting the waltzing of a lady who danced so.
"Yes," she said, "with Mr. Hardwicks;" and in a moment they were whirling round in a style quite peculiar, and altogether new to the accomplished waltzers then and there assembled.
People looked, and some smiled—and then couple after couple paused in the dance to gaze on the strangers who had just taken the floor—and soon they had it all to themselves, and on they whirled like mad ones. Harry could not stand it—he left the room.
Presently some of his young friends followed him, who seemed excessively amused, and one of them exclaimed,
"Harry, where on earth did you pick up those extraordinary waltzers. Mrs. Castleton tells me they are friends of yours?"
Harry muttered something, and said,
"Hardwicks should not ask any woman to waltz. He did not know how; no man should, if he could not waltz himself."
"Are you dancing, Francis?" asked another, of a fashionable looking young man standing near.