There was a ball at the Old Raleigh during the Christmas holydays, to which the city as well as its vicinity sent a numerous representation of those soft, fragile and dove-like females, who, springing like so many Venus' from the bosom of the sea, claim their home only in the tranquil and affectionate hearths of tide-water Virginia. Like the mocking bird, their dwelling place is amid the ripple of the murmuring tide, while their song is the melody which thrills into life the fearful and eternal solitude of the pine forests. When I entered the room, the dance was exultingly triumphant, and each mazy figure was softened into intense interest by that joyousness of mirth which takes its pride of place only from early hearts and youthful hopes. One girl instantly arrested my attention; and the long, deep and ardent gaze which I directed towards her, mantled her cheek with a deep and struggling blush, giving that delicate tint which, like the fabled rose, twines itself around, only to bloom over the pallid countenance of disease. She was pale, attenuated and fragile, with that dewy-like softness which is stolen from the couch of sickness, and that tranquil firmness which shows both a capability of happiness, and a peaceful resignation at the want of it. Her form was full of grace and symmetrical beauty, and her eye, like a glow-worm, lit up the saddened paleness of her face. How wonderful is the contagion of friendship! How curious are the hallowed sympathies of love! Unseen though felt—unknown though experienced, they breathe that pathos of congeniality, which in exciting attachment, confirms constancy, and which ever leaves us to wonder not so much at their commencement as at their continuance. I do not know that my appearance was calculated to impress the heart of the fair girl who trembled under my searching gaze; but her blush truly responded to the passion, poetry and sympathy which my eyes discoursed, and I soon found that the shadowy gloom of my countenance had arrested her kindness and excited her curiosity. I was soon formally introduced, though in the confusion of the moment I did not hear her name; and on her complaint of fatigue, I led her to a retired seat, and in a short time we were fairly launched into that great sea of conversation, the mental difference of the sexes—a subject on which man ever shows his ill-nature, and woman her superiority. I found her mind opening like the flowers of the wilderness in richness, variety and freshness, and her wit leaping and gambolling like an uncaged bird. I poured out all the long-hived treasures of my erudition, disclosed the whole extent of my learning, and disported all the little elegancies and graces of my nature. I could tell her no secret of taste, or display no gem of literature, with which she was not familiar; and looking up in her tranquil and placid face, I took no note of time, or of the whispers of the crowd, which had declared me "a case."
Towards the conclusion of the ball, a gentleman taking advantage of a pause in our conversation, addressed her by the name of Miss Pilton. Good God! how that word rang and tingled through the deepest recesses of my heart, and how quickly did my hate leap up to it as a fortuitous gift for its demoniac revenge.
"Are you the sister," I inquired, "of Mr. Henry Pilton, now at William and Mary?"
"I am his only sister," was her reply. "You certainly know him, and if you do not, you must seek his acquaintance. I will tell him that I am about to make you my friend, and he will love you for my sake."
"I do know him," I answered; "he is studious and intelligent, and possesses the esteem and confidence of all the professors."
She rewarded this constrained, though frank avowal, with a smile—and in the rapture of her joy, she betrayed all that confidence which her brother's pride had deposited in her bosom, and told with enthusiasm the little history of his ambition, his fears, and his hopes. He boldly anticipated every honor within the compass of society; and that proud determination to be great, which invigorated his youthful ambition, added a deeper hue of malignity to the venom of my hate.
"He hardly gives me time," she said, "to love him; for gazing like the eagle on the sun, he never looks down on the insipid dulness of earth. I do not admire students, Mr. Granby; they are cold and selfish, and though they gain our flattery, they rarely win our hearts."
I construed this remark, though made at the expense of her brother, as a compliment to myself, and soon gained her smiles, by many sarcasms which I levelled at pedants, scholars and students. Without professing flattery, I pleased her by a ready acquiescence of sentiment and opinion; and anticipating her pride of sex and her tenderness of heart, I lauded in the richest language of quotation, woman's love, and woman's constancy. The artlessness of her character, and the simplicity of her nature, could not hide from my vanity the favorable impression I had made on her heart. I looked on my victim with some emotions of pity, and paused for a moment under the goading sting of conscience; yet the fiend-like passion which rioted on my life, told me that the ruin of her peace, and the destruction of her happiness, would be the proudest victory which my hate could achieve.
Leaving her for a few moments, I looked around at the mirthful throng which filled the room, and sauntered to the bar, which was a point where conversation converged its focus. About a table prodigally ornamented with decanters and glasses, were collected numerous groups of young men, who were all talking at the same time on beauty, horseracing, politics and duelling. Here and there a solitary tobacco chewer might be seen, stealing to some fire place or window, and enjoying in mute rapture, the filth, excitement and grossness of his depraved appetite. Two or three youthful legislators from the adjoining counties, were flaunting their maiden honors in the broad light of political vanity—while four elderly gentlemen, in embroidered waistcoats and fair-top boots, were eloquently deprecating the onward march of democracy, which made the legislature a mob of demagogues, and the ball room a collection of fine clothes and vulgarity. This was my uncle's favorite theme, and from the folly of such croaking aristocracy, common sense and not education had delivered me. An aged negro, the "harmonious Phillips" of the country, dressed in the ample costume of the old school, with a powdered head, a large knob of watch seals, and a silver ship in his bosom, controlled with fierce tyranny his partners of the bow, fife and triangle. Bowing almost to the floor, he would ever and anon cry out in a magisterial tone, cross over—forward—turn your partners—done, and catching the inspiration of catgut and rosin, his ivory teeth were displayed like the keys of a piano-forte, while his broad face fairly laughed itself into ecstasy.
At the conclusion of the ball, I became the solitary escort of Miss Pilton. The moon was shining coldly and brightly over the world; and when I was about to leave my fair charge, looking up she exclaimed, "How beautiful!—how melancholy!—it makes me almost a poetess. What a contrast to the busy crowd we have just left; oh! that human life was as cloudless, and human love as pure!"