between too old ladies, whose nodding plumes soon closed over her like a hearse.
They say parties are so very delightful: I have my doubts—and doubts, like facts, are stubborn things. I put the chaperones out of the question—we will suppose the few sacrificed for the good of the many—and we know martyrdom has its pride and pleasure—and pass on to the young, for whose enjoyment these parties are ostensibly given. The age where the mere delight of dancing with a grown-up person suffices unto itself, is soon past. The ball assumes its nominative case, and requires an object; and flirtation—the adopted child of ennui—relieves the more serious business of matrimonial speculation. The worst of this pretty sort of half-and-half indolent excitement is, that it unidealises the heart—to a woman especially. And love is either annihilated by the deadly weight of calculation, or evaporates in the light fumes of vanity. A few years of feverish hopes, a few more of envious fears, and the complexion is faded, and the game over. How much of endeavour and of disappointment, of rivalry and mortification, have been crowded into a few brief years!
