ds, with
one's friends and one's friends' sisters.

I was surprised to find several "Imperiales" on the programme of our
little dance, and was told that was the latest craze all over Paris. Now
nothing of the kind had ever been heard of in the terpsichorean circles
I had just left, so naturally I had no notion of what the step might be
like. When I attempted it, however, it mattered little whether I danced
it correctly or not, for, coming straight as I did from the French
capital, I was supposed to know all about it; so the good Leipsickers
soon adopted my rendering, and my step became the fashion.

I wanted those two waltzes and the cotillon because Bella was the best
dancer in Leipsic. She must have been born under the star of rhythm;
some fairy must have beaten time with a magic wand, pronouncing a
_One_-two-three, _One_-two-three blessing upon her. One would never have
imagined that that reserved girl, with the far-away look, was the queen
of the ballroom; true, her figure was perfect, but it was not till she
waltzed that its graceful and subtle lines revealed themselves.
Curiously the far-away look never left her when dancing; she seemed to
be undulating towards some distant goal, wherever that might be.

How few fairies there are to beat time at the baby's cradle! and is it
not curious how seldom they go to the little boys? Dancing humanity has
had to invent the valse a deux temps, that bids us close our ears to the
strains of the syren, Strauss, and take two steps where there should be
three. Perhaps there is some malignant fairy to visit the cradles of the
little boys. One would think so, to judge by the expressions on the
faces of many dancers, expressions varying from that of painful
uneasiness to that of abject misery. Poor souls! Some rushing wildly to
destruction, others doomed to crawl out their ballroom existence,
gravitating within the narrow circle of the chandelier!

* * * * *

Friday came, and the ball.

But I have nothing to tell about it. Bella was not there. No, Bella
could not be there--she was ill.

Ill--then very ill--dangerously ill. Soon she was dead!

It all came so rapidly, it must be told rapidly, breathlessly.

When? How?--She died on Sunday night at eleven o'clock--It can't be
true!--It was true.

How incredulous we are when first called upon to realise the truth! how
slow to understand and believe that what was but yesterday a living
form must b