But to return to May and its multitudes. Mrs. Danvers was in a black velvet dress, mutually pertinacious in their adherence to each other—and diamonds, which only required new setting to have made her the envy of half her acquaintance, three parts of whom were already crowding her superb rooms. Emily first went through a languid quadrille, with a partner whose whole attention was given to his vis-à-vis, and then resumed her seat by Lady Alicia, melancholy and meditative, when her attention was attracted by that most musical inquiry of, "Who is that pretty dark-eyed girl?—a very wood-nymph beside that frozen water-spirit Lady Alicia Delawarr!" The reply was inaudible; but a moment afterwards Mrs. Danvers presented Mr. Boyne Sillery. "Miss Arundel for the next quadrille."
With such an introduction, what partner but would have been graciously received? Perhaps, had not Emily's judgment been a little blinded by the diamond-dust which vanity flings in the eyes, Mr. Boyne Sillery might not have appeared such a very nice young man. He was precisely of an order she had too much good taste to admire–he was, to use the expression a French critic applied to Moore's poetry, trop parfumé;
