"Well, my dear, a man has to be as old as that to be able to offer a woman an acceptable position. It's not at all bad to be the wife of a banker."
At this moment the music began, and the men came forward to ask my little neighbors to dance. They accepted languidly, with a half-indifferent air. The gentlemen placed their opera-hats on the chairs the ladies had left, and they all advanced, talking, to join the dancers. I followed them with my eyes through the crowd. Each abandoned herself with charming grace to her partner's arm, turning her head a little to one side, her hair floating on the waves of the waltz. Perhaps there was exaggerated ease and a trace of childish awkwardness in their manner. In ten minutes they came back to their places, out of breath, but with bright eyes. They took up their fans again, and while fanning themselves went on with their conversation.
"That gentleman dances very well, but he's a queer creature: he talked to me about geography. Do you know the principal town in the department of the Eastern Pyrenees?"
"No I have forgotten. Dear me! how warm I am! I danced with that partner of yours the other evening: he talked about geography to me too. Isn't it strange that some partners always say the same thing over and over again?"
"Oh, there is mamma making me a sign that it is time to go home. Oh dear! no indeed! It will be like the other evening, when we should have gone to bed as early as the hens if mamma hadn't been asked for the German. Tell your cousin to ask mamma to dance, and to ask me. I like him very much: he at least makes you laugh, even if you don't understand very well what he is talking about. He seems sometimes to be making fun of you, but that's no matter: he's very nice; and then, too, he holds you firmly while dancing, so that you feel perfectly comfortable."
Toward two o'clock in the morning, after having looked through M. de B.'s collection of etchings and played a game of whist, I returned to my station behind the three girls. Two were bravely drinking a glass of claret, and the third a cup of chocolate. They were laughing so loud while leaning back in their chairs, and so talking all together, that I could scarcely catch what they said, but I saw by their loosened hair and the brilliancy of their eyes, and their feverish agitation, that they had not wasted their time. Their mothers, who were quite as animated, had collected together, and three or four gentlemen had gathered round them saying a thousand charming bits of nonsense. The gayety had become so fast and furious in that corner that I despaired of hearing anything more, so I went back to the ante-chamber.
What charming women my adorable little girls will have become in a few years!
Pray do not think that the fever of pleasure, that candlelight and love of waltzing will at all impair the solid treasures which a good education has stored up in their little hearts. This very night when they go to bed these three little angels will piously fold their hands beneath the quilt, so as to keep warm, and will thank Heaven for all that has been done for them, and will beg that they may not catch a horrible cold in the head which will prevent their going to the opera to-morrow. Then, having kissed the little gold medal which protects them from fire and spraining their ankles, and makes them dance in time, they will fall fast asleep to the dim murmur of a waltz, like a bird in his nest.
T. S. Perry.