et Madame Chose?"_ Sometimes he deigned to turn
aside for an heiress; and as he was a very amusing and rather ornamental
man, the girls were always glad to have his company; but the good
speculations took care not to fall in love with him, or to give him
sufficient encouragement (although a Frenchman does not require a great
deal) to justify a declaration on his part. Perhaps the legend about the
mutual-benefit subscription club hurt his prospects, or it may have been
his limited success in dancing. The same reason--as much, at least, as
the assumed one of their vulgarity--kept Mr. Simpson, and other "birds"
of his set, out of the exclusive society. For dancing was the one great
article in the code of the fashionables to which all other amusements or
occupations were subordinate. There was a grand dress-ball once a week
at one or other of the hotels, and two undress-balls--_hops_ they were
called: but most of the exclusives went to these also in full dress, and
both balls and hops usually lasted till three or four in the morning.
Then on the off-nights "our set" got up their own little extempore balls
in the large public parlor, to the music of some volunteer pianist, and
when the weather was bad they danced in the same place all day; when it
was good these informal _matinees_ did not generally last more than two
or three hours. Then there were serenades given about day-break, by
young men who were tired of "the tiger"--nominally to some particular
ladies, but virtually, of course, to the whole hotel, or nearly so--and
the only music they could devise for these occasions were waltzes or
polkas. Ashburner made a calculation that, counting in the serenades,
the inhabitants of Oldport were edified by waltz, polka, and redowa
music (in those days the _Schottisch_ was not), eleven hours out of the
twenty-four, daily. And at last, when Mr. Monson, the Cellarius of
New-York, came down with various dancing-girls, native and imported, to
give lessons to such aspiring young men as might desire it, first Mrs.
Harrison and other women, who, though wealthy and well-known, were not
exactly "of us," used to drop in to look at the fun; and, finally, all
the exclusives, irresistibly attracted by the sound of fiddles and
revolving feet, thronged the little room up-stairs, where the dancing
class was assembled, and from looking on, proceeded to join in the
exercises. Ladies, beaux, and dancing-girls, were all mingled together,
whirling and