In her hands she holds a little scarf, which serves to give a motive to the action of the arms and head.  The movement in this figure, which admits of great variety, no two performers being at all alike in it, is somewhat stronger than in the first.  The undulation, too, instead of dying away gradually from its commencement, runs with equal force, like the line of an S, through the body.  Without any pause in the music the dancer sometimes glides imperceptibly into, sometimes begins with startling suddenness, the next movement.  The general position remains what it was before, but to describe how its principle of life and motion seems concentrated below the dancer’s waist, and from thence flows in undulating streams, to flash from or to dull, according to her organization, the eyes, and to crisp the child-like feet with which she grasps the carpet, is for me impossible.  A Gavarni might draw what would recall this wonderful pantomime to the brain of one who had seen it, but nothing but his own imagination could suggest it to him who had not.  One of these girls is a perfect actress:  numberless shades of expression pass over her delicate features, but the prevailing one is a beseeching, supplicating look.  We administer to her, as the custom is, some rupees in token of our admiration, and with an arch smile the no longer supplicating damsel passes on.

A vague notion prevails that a nautch is a very naughty and improper exhibition.  My experience is limited, but I must say that in the few I have seen there was nothing that a sergent de mile at Mabille could have objected to.  Certainly, no one who retains a seat during the performance of a ballet can say a word on the subject.  If the charge of indelicacy is to be brought against either, it would, I think, weigh most heavily against the latter.  The Indian dance is voluptuous and graceful, as a dance should be; which is more than can be affirmed of a ballet of the French school, some of the attitudes of which are certainly not addressed only to the sense of beauty.  But it was now late, and, although the festivities showed no signs of abatement, we bade our host adieu and returned home.  W.H.S.

NO DANBURY FOR ME.

Not in Danbury.  No:  life has too many vicissitudes in that Connecticut borough.  It presents too kaleidoscopic an appearance to suit my style.  Family catastrophes succeed each other at a brisker rate than I am used to.  I shouldn’t relish being a Danbury man on North street or South street:  indeed, if you urge the thing, not even on East, West or any other street.  I could by no manner of means hope to get reconciled to the accidents, you know.  It is climatic, I suppose—­an exhilarating air.  I should be attempting all sorts of impossible feats, my sickly failures would of course get into the papers, and chagrin, dismay and general discomfort would be my earthly lot.  I am not ambitious to undertake teaching the family