Fashion is the religion of half the world; the mode makes the morals, and what it sanctions cannot be wrong.  The commissary, not so easy a convert, sneeringly remarked that the exhibition was very suitable to ballet dancers and such folk, plainly classing most of his guests in that category; while Lady Mabel, with bare-faced hypocrisy, glided about among her foreign friends, lamenting that her English clumsiness cut her off from taking her part in a diversion, and in the displays of grace and feeling, which, she said, with double meaning, were unbecoming any but women of the Latin races.

The night was hot, and dancing made it hotter.  So Mrs. Shortridge called upon Lady Mabel to fill up the interval of rest, and gratify the expectations of their friends with some of her choicest songs.

But yesterday so large an audience would have abashed her; now she scarcely saw the throng around her in her eagerness to gain her end by prolonging the amusements of the night.  She sent L’Isle for her guitar, made him turn over her music, never releasing him for a moment, while she sung no Italian, French or English songs, but some of those native and cherished requidillas, the airs and words of which find here so ready an access to all hearts; and she executed them with a skill, melody, and pathos, that flattered and charmed the Portuguese.  The guitar, though the cherished friend of serenading lovers of the old Spanish school, was truly but a poor accompaniment to such a voice; but L’Isle saw that, like the harp, it had the merit of displaying to advantage, the roundest, fairest, and most beautifully turned arms he had ever gazed upon.

The dancers were again upon the floor; the night sped on, and Lady Mabel made free use of her interpreter in ingratiating herself with the Portuguese.  L’Isle, true to his pledge, taxed his powers to the utmost to be witty and agreeable in her name; at times a little overdoing his part.  Thus, at supper, when an elaborate compliment to Dona Carlotta Seguiera, drew a reply as if it had originated with himself, he stripped it of part of its merit by saying that he was merely the mouth-piece of Lady Mabel’s sentiments.  When Dona Carlotta expressed her surprise that Lady Mabel’s short English sentence should make so long a speech in Portuguese, he explained it by Lady Mabel’s peculiar faculty of uttering a volume in three words.

Supper and the dance that followed were over; Mrs. Shortridge’s great night drew to a close; and many of the company asked for one more melody from the sweet songstress before they dispersed.  While turning over her music, Lady Mabel seemed to hesitate in her choice, and L’Isle thought that her hand trembled as she selected a sheet.