with head
and with hand--and seemed, like herself, carried away by the enthusiasm
of the gestic art.

After a rapid yet graceful succession of _entrechats_, Fenella
introduced a slow movement, which terminated the dance; then dropping
a profound courtesy, she continued to stand motionless before the King,
her arms folded on her bosom, her head stooped, and her eyes cast down,
after the manner of an Oriental slave; while through the misty veil of
her shadowy locks, it might be observed, that the colour which exercise
had called to her cheeks was dying fast away, and resigning them to
their native dusky hue.

"By my honour," exclaimed the King, "she is like a fairy who trips it
in moonlight. There must be more of air and fire than of earth in her
composition. It is well poor Nelly Gwyn saw her not, or she would have
died of grief and envy. Come, gentlemen, which of you contrived this
pretty piece of morning pastime?"

The courtiers looked at each other, but none of them felt authorised to
claim the merit of a service so agreeable.

"We must ask the quick-eyed nymph herself then," said the King; and,
looking at Fenella, he added, "Tell us, my pretty one, to whom we owe
the pleasure of seeing you?--I suspect the Duke of Buckingham; for this
is exactly a _tour de son metier_."

Fenella, on observing that the King addressed her, bowed low, and shook
her head, in signal that she did not understand what he said. "Oddsfish,
that is true," said the King; "she must perforce be a foreigner--her
complexion and agility speak it. France or Italy has had the moulding of
those elastic limbs, dark cheek, and eye of fire." He then put to her in
French, and again in Italian, the question, "By whom she had been sent
hither?"

At the second repetition, Fenella threw back her veiling tresses, so as
to show the melancholy which sat on her brow; while she sadly shook her
head, and intimated by imperfect muttering, but of the softest and most
plaintive kind, her organic deficiency.

"Is it possible Nature can have made such a fault?" said Charles. "Can
she have left so curious a piece as thou art without the melody of
voice, whilst she has made thee so exquisitely sensible to the beauty of
sound?--Stay: what means this? and what young fellow are you bringing
up there? Oh, the master of the show, I suppose.--Friend," he added,
addressing himself to Peveril, who, on the signal of Fenella, stepped
forward almost instinctively, and kneeled