dancing has not commenced, though some of the young ladies, I believe, begin to be impatient."

"Shew us then the way to the ballroom," said Mr. Willoughby; for I protest I don't know where I am, though in my own house.”

"Oh that is quite delightful!" cried Mrs. Nesbitt, who, coming up at the instant, caught the last words. "I always told Mrs. Willoughby that it would be so; but we have a great many more charming surprises and puzzles for you; so come along, and be enchanted at every step."

"If you mean bewildered by being enchanted," returned Mr. Willoughby, " you are right. Isabella, are we to turn to the right or the left? This is all quite different from what it used to be."

"To be sure!" said Mrs. Nesbitt, with a tone of triumph. "Now you

see the difference between a ball given by a gentleman and a lady."

Isabella heard the word "vulgar!" uttered in a whisper by Lady Charlotte to Mr. Willoughby, who laughed. "Come, my lady ball-giver," said he to Isabella, "lead the way."

It is not the way to my triumph, thought she, but to my humiliation; and I deserve it.

Yet on their entrance into the ballroom an involuntary exclamation of delight which burst from Lady Charlotte's lips gave her a momentary exaltation.

Perhaps all my folly will not be thrown away! thought Isabella.

The dancing immediately began; but Lady Charlotte declined taking any share in it, and Mr. Wil loughby remaining near her, they continued in conversation till the first pause in that pleasurable exercise gave

them an opportunity of again seeking Isabella.

"If you are not going to dance again directly," said Mr. Willoughby to her, "pray come with Lady Charlotte and me, and let us make the tour of the rooms. I really must understand all that you have been doing, and Lady Charlotte is an adept in this art, and longs to criticise."

"Don't believe a word he says, my dear Isabella," said Lady Charlotte: "I long for no such thing; I only want to admire, and to teach him to admire."

"I can scarcely expect either one or the other," returned Isabella, "from your science, or Mr. Willoughby's indifference; but I am ready to attend you."

"Oh! you are quite mistaken as to Mr. Willoughby's indifference about such matters," said Lady Charlotte :

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"he is nothing so little as indifferent, though he may, in his masculine superiority, pretend to despise such frivolities; but we will make him take both pride and pleasure in your fairy works before the night is over, or we will know the reason why."

"The reason is very simple," replied Mr. Willoughby: "if I have neither pride nor pleasure in such things, it is because I do not understand them. The brightest ornament of a ball-room is a number of happy faces, and the power of producing them worth all the draperies and paper temples that ever Nixon furnished ;" and so saying, he drew Isabella's arm under one of his, and offering the other to Lady Charlotte, who immediately took it, the trio moved on together, notwithstanding the uplifted hands and eyes of Mrs. Nesbitt, and the manifest to

kens that she made to Isabella of the total disapproval of such a procedure.

To the eye of a reasoner of Mrs. Nesbitt's sort, nothing could indeed be less likely to promote the triumph of Isabella over her rival than their being thus placed in immediate comparison, -Lady Charlotte's eye beaming with triumphant malice and projected mischief; Isabella, meek and mortified, disgusted by the familiarity affected by Lady Charlotte in her address and manners towards her husband, and ashamed to be led in triumph, as it were, by the very person over whom she hoped to have triumphed; while Mr. Willoughby, equally unconscious of the feelings of either of his companions, and far from sharing in the one or the other, thought not of any thing beyond enjoying the present moment. Of intended injury or unkindness to Isabella he was wholly in