of people jostling against each other without grace or order, is fascinated by one couple of equal beauty, darting forward, like twin stars, in free and unimpeded space.  As if in the pride of defiance, the cavalier accentuates his steps, quits his partner for a moment, as if to contemplate her with renewed delight, rejoins her with passionate eagerness, or whirls himself rapidly round, as though overcome with the sudden joy and yielding to the delicious giddiness of rapture.  Sometimes, two couples start at the same moment, after which a change of partners may occur between them; or a third cavalier may present himself, and, clapping his hands, claim one of the ladies as his partner.  The queens of the festival are in turn claimed by the most brilliant gentlemen present, courting the honor of leading them through the mazes of the dance.

While in the Waltz and Galop, the dancers are isolated, and only confused tableaux are offered to the bystanders; while the Quadrille is only a kind of pass at arms made with foils, where attack and defence proceed with equal indifference, where the most nonchalant display of grace is answered with the same nonchalance; while the vivacity of the Polka, charming, we confess, may easily become equivocal; while Fandangos, Tarantulas and Minuets, are merely little love-dramas, only interesting to those who execute them, in which the cavalier has nothing to do but to display his partner, and the spectators have no share but to follow, tediously enough, coquetries whose obligatory movements are not addressed to them;—­in the Mazourka, on the contrary, they have also their part, and the role of the cavalier yields neither in grace nor importance to that of his fair partner.

The long intervals which separate the successive appearance of the pairs being reserved for conversation among the dancers, when their turn comes again, the scene passes no longer only among themselves, but extends from them to the spectators.  It is to them that the cavalier exhibits the vanity he feels in having been able to win the preference of the lady who has selected him; it is in their presence she has deigned to show him this honor; she strives to please them, because the triumph of charming them is reflected upon her partner, and their applause may be made a part of the most flattering and insinuating coquetry.  Indeed, at the close of the dance, she seems to make him a formal offering of their suffrages in her favor.  She bounds rapidly towards him and rests upon his arm,—­a movement susceptible of a thousand varying shades which feminine tact and subtle feeling well know how to modify, ringing every change, from the most impassioned and impulsive warmth of manner to an air of the most complete “abandon.”