fashion has a choice of lovers, as she has a choice
of dresses--for all emergencies.

"But how about these new figures?" asked Orsetti.

"Per Bacco--hear the music!" cried Malatesta. "What a delicious waltz!
I want to dance. Let's settle it at once. Who's to lead?"

"Oh! Baldassare, of course," replied Franchi, a sallow, languid young
man, who looked as if he had been raised in a hot-house, and had lost
all his color. "Nobody else would take the trouble. Who is he to dance
with?"

"Let him see who will have him. I shall not interfere. He'll dance
for both, anyhow," answered Orsetti, laughing. "No one competes with
Adonis."

"Where is he?"

"Oh! dancing, of course," returned Orsetti. "Don't you see him
twirling round like a teetotum, with Marchesa Amici 'of the
swan-neck?'" And he pointed to a pair who were waltzing with
such precision that they never by a single step broke the
circle--Baldassare gallantly receiving the charge of any free lancers
who flung themselves in their path.

Baldassare is much elated at being permitted to dance with "the
swan-neck," a little faded now, but once a noted beauty. The swan-neck
is a famous lady. Ill-natured persons might have added an awkward
syllable to _famous._ She had been very dear to a great Russian
magnate who lived in a villa lined with malachite, and loaded her
with gifts. But as the marquis, her husband, was always with her and
invariably spoke of his wife as an angel, where was the harm? Now the
Russian magnate was dead, and the Marchesa Amici had retired to Lucca,
to enjoy the spoils along with her discreet and complaisant marquis.

"How that young fellow does push himself!" observes the cynical
Franchi. "Dancing with the Amici--such a great lady! Nothing is sacred
to him."

"I wish Nobili were come." It was Orsetti who spoke now. "I should
have liked him to lead instead of Baldassare. Adonis is getting
forward. He wants keeping in order. Will no one else lead? I cannot,
in my own house."

"Oh! but you would mortally offend poor Trenta if you did not let
Baldassare lead. The women will keep him in order," was the immediate
reply of a young man who had not yet spoken. "The cavaliere must
marshal the dancers, and Baldassare must lead, or the old man would
break his heart."

"I wish Nobili were here all the same," replied Orsetti. "If he does
not come soon, we must select his partner for him. Whom is he to
have?"

"Oh! Nera Boccarini, of course," responded