a caution about to-morrow's costume: such an injunction had not passed Emily's lips for weeks.
Even in this world of wonders, there are two subjects of our especial marvel;—how people can be so silly as to give fancy balls; and, still more, how people can be so silly as to go to them. With a due proportion of the coldness of our insular atmosphere entering like a damp sea-breeze into our composition, we English are the worst people in the world to assume characters not our own—we adapt and adopt most miserably—and a fancy ball is just a caricature of a volume of costumes, only the figures are somewhat stiffer and not so well executed.
Emily was that evening, by the aid of shining spangle and silver gauze, an embroidered sylph; and in attempting to be especially airy and graceful, was, of course, constrained and awkward. However, Mr. Boyne Sillery assured her she looked like the emanation of a moonlit cloud; and she could not do less than admire the old English costume, by which she meant the slashed doublet and lace ruff of her companion. On they went, through the most ill-assorted groups. Young ladies whom a pretty ankle had seduced into Switzerland, but who now walked about as if struck by sudden
