Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/415

Rh 23rd.—Now I have seen all that is to be seen, namely, the great ball, and that is not such a very great ball after all. There were not many people, and among the people nothing remarkable, excepting some half-dozen tasteful and lovely toilettes. It would be impossible to conceive anything more harmonious and elegant, without the slightest showiness or extravagance. The ladies who wore them were also handsome and agreeable, and had in their costume adopted the style which best suited them. I was least pleased with the principal belle and dancer of the ball, because she was so very angular in figure and style, and her dancing was so abrupt, and the wreath of red Provence-roses which she wore was placed on her head with so little grace, that I could only wonder at her. Neither did the gentlemen dance well; the polka was singularly ungraceful. It was painful to me to see some pale little girls tricked out like grown people, and old before their time. To take children out of their childhood is to destroy the whole of their future.

One of the gentlemen at the ball had taken it into his head that I did not properly appreciate Gerard College at Philadelphia, and took upon himself to be my instructor on the subject of this college, which he maintained to be unparalleled in the whole world. I observed that such institutions were to be met with also in Switzerland and France. But no, not wholly such; there were no institutions in Europe altogether like this American one, which was vastly superior to all others, as he would now show me.

I felt myself indescribably incapable of learning, and sighing, bethought myself of Solomon's words, “that there was a time for all things,” wished to look quietly at the ball, and was very glad, when some new and agreeable acquaintance put an end to the lecture.

And it has often happened to me thus; just as I have had one instance of American assumption, the very