it is not to be described--it bewildered,
inspired, overpowered, and enchanted at the same moment. In less than
an hour, every girl in the room was in love with him. I do not except
myself. If they are as irresistible on the field of battle, I do not
know what could withstand them. Imagine my feelings, when all at once
he stepped up to me and requested the honour of the next quadrille!

Unfortunately, I was engaged. What would I not have given at that
moment, had a courier entered to call away my dancer.

"Perhaps the next one?" said the captain, seating himself beside me.

I do not know what I said, or whether I replied at all; I only know I
felt as I do when flying in a dream.

"But you will forget, perhaps, that you promised me?" he continued.

Had I not suddenly recollected myself, I should probably have told him
that sooner could I forget my existence; however, I only replied, in a
very indifferent tone, that I should not forget.

"But you do not know me!"

A country simpleton would have answered in my place, "Among a
hundred--among thousands! at the first glance!"

Not I! As if I were doing the simplest thing in the world, I took a
single rosebud from my breast and gave it to him. "I shall know you by
this," I said, without betraying the slightest agitation.

The captain silently pressed the rose to his lips; I did not look, but
I _knew_ it. I would not have encountered his eyes at that moment for
all the world.

He then left me and sat down under a mirror opposite; he did not
dance, and seemed absorbed in his own reflections.

Meanwhile two csardas and a polonaise were danced, after which our
quadrille would come. You may conceive how long the time appeared;
these eternal "harom a tanczes" seemed absolutely to have no end. I
never saw people dance so furiously; and although it was the third
night they had not slept, nothing would tire them out. However, I
amused myself pretty well by making the acquaintance of the commander
of the battalion, Major Sch----, who is a most diverting person.

His name is German; and though he speaks Hungarian shockingly, he will
always speak it, even if he is addressed in German or French. Then he
is most dreadfully deaf, and accustomed to such loud-toned
conversation, one would think the cannons were conversing together.

They say he is a very gallant soldier; but his appearance is not
prepossessing--an uncouth, grotesque figure, with a long thin face,
short-cut hair