Notwithstanding the violence of the opposition, and perhaps aided by it, the dancing-school was at length fairly established, and some of the elderly matrons of the village, who had considered dances as the orgies of Satan, were heard to confess that when properly regulated, they might furnish an amusement not altogether unsuited to youth, and that they did not, in point of propriety, suffer by a comparison with the romps, forfeits, and cushion-dances of their younger days.
At Mrs. Wilson's instance, two new weekly meetings were appointed, on the same evenings with the dancing-school; the one to be a conference in the presence of the young people, and the other a catechetical lecture for them. These her daughters were compelled to attend, in spite of the bold and turbulent opposition of Martha, and the well-concerted artifices of Elvira.
Elvira expressed her surprise at Jane's patience under the new dispensation. "To be sure, Jane," she said, "you have not the trial that I have, about the dancing-school, for a poor girl can't expect such accomplishments.—I do so long to dance! It was in the mazy dance Edward Montreville first fell in love with Selina;—but then these odious—these hateful meetings! Oh, I have certainly a natural antipathy to them; you do not always have to attend them; mother is ready enough to let you off, when there is any hard job to be done in the family;—well, much as I hate work, I had rather work than go to meeting. Tell me honestly, Jane, would not you like to
