University of Virginia Library

25. CHAPTER XXV.
SIR ASINUS GOES TO THE BALL.

UPON the most moderate calculation, Sir Asinus must
have tied his lace cravat a dozen times before he
finally coaxed his smoothly shaven chin to rest in quiet
grace upon its white folds. Having accomplished this
important matter, and donned his coat of Mecklenburg
silk, the knight took a last survey of himself in the mirror,
carefully reconnoitred the street below for lurking
proctors, and then brushing the nap of his cocked hat
and humming his favorite Latin song, stepped daintily
into the street and bent his way toward the Raleigh.

Sir Asinus thought he had never seen a finer ball;
for, to say nothing of the chariots and coachmen and
pawing horses and liveries at the door—of the splendid
gentlemen dismounting from their cobs and entering gay
and free the spacious ball-room—there was the great
and overwhelming array of fatal beauty raining splendor
on the noisy air, and turning every thing into delight.

The great room—the Apollo famed in history for ever—
blazed from end to end with lights; the noble minstrels
of the festival sat high above and stunned the ears with
fiddles, hautboys, flutes and fifes and bugles; the crowd
swayed back and forth, and buzzed and hummed and
rustled with a well-bred laughter;—and from all this
fairy spectacle of brilliant lights and fair and graceful

forms arose a perfume which made the ascetic Sir Asinus
once more happy, causing his lips to smile, his eyes to
dance, his very pointed nose to grow more sharp as it
inhaled the fragrance showering down in shivering clouds.

Make way for his Excellency!—here he comes, the gallant
gay Fauquier, with a polite word for every lady,
and a smile for the old planters who have won and lost
with him their thousands of pounds. And the smiling
Excellency has a word for the students too, and among
the rest for Sir Asinus, his prime favorite.

“Ah, Tom!” he says, “give you good evening.”

“Good evening, your Excellency,” said Sir Asinus,
bowing.

“From your exile?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah, well, carpe diem! be happy while you may—
that has been my principle in life. A fine assembly;
and if I am not mistaken, I hear the shuffle of cards yonder
in the side room.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ah, you Virginians! I find your thirst for play even
greater than my own.”

“I think your Excellency introduced the said thirst.”

“What! introduced it? I? Not at all. You Virginians
are true descendants of the cavaliers—those long-haired
gentlemen who drank, and diced, and swore, and
got into the saddle, and fought without knowing very
accurately what they were fighting about. See, I have
drawn you to the life!”

Sir Asinus smiled.

“We shall some day have to fight, sir,” he said, “and
we shall then falsify our ancestral character.”

“How?”

“We shall know what we fight about!”

“Bah! my dear Tom! there you are beginning to
talk politics, and soon you will be rattling the stamp act
and navigation laws in my ears, like two pebbles shaken
together in the hand. Enough! Be happy while you
may, I say again, and forget your theories. Ah! there
is my friend, Mrs. Wimple, and her charming niece.
Good evening, madam.”

And his Excellency made a courtly bow to Aunt
Wimple, who was resplendent in a head-dress which
towered aloft like a helmet.

And passing on, the Governor smiled upon Miss
Belle-bouche, and saluted Jacques.

On former occasions we have attempted to describe
the costume of this latter gentleman; on the present
occasion we shall not. It is enough to say that the large
tulip bed at Shadynook seemed to have left that domain
and entered the ball-room of the Raleigh, with the lady
who attended to them.

This was Belle-bouche, as we have said; and the
tender languishing face of the little beauty was full of
joy at the bright scene.

As for poor Jacques, he was oceans deep in love, and
scarcely looked at any other lady in the room. This
caused much amusement among his friends who were
looking at him; but what does a lover care for laughter?

“Ah!” he says, “a truly Arcadian scene! Methinks
the Muses and the Graces have become civilized, and
assembled here to dance the minuet. You will have
a delightful evening.”

“Oh, I'm sure I shall!” says Belle-bouche, smiling.

“And I shall, because I am with you.”

With which words, Jacques smiles and sighs; and his
watchful friends follow his eyes, and laugh more loudly
than ever.

They say to him afterwards: “Well, old fellow, the
way you were sweet upon your lady-love on that occasion,
was a sin! You almost ate her up with your
eyes, and at one time you looked as if you were going
to dissolve into a sigh, or melt into a smile. At any
rate, you are gone—go on!”

Belle-bouche receives the tender compliments of
Jacques with a flitting blush, and says, in order to divert
him from the subject of herself:

“There is Mr. Mowbray, entering with his sister
Lucy. She is very sweet——”

“But not——”

“And must be at our May-day,” adds Belle-bouche,
quickly. “Good evening, Mr. Mowbray and Miss Lucy;
I wanted to see you.” With which words Belle-bouche
gives her hand to Lucy. “You must come to our May-day
at Shadynook;—promise now. Mr. Mowbray delivered
my message?”

“Yes; and I will certainly come—if Ernest will take
me,” says Lucy, smiling.

The pale face of Mowbray is lit up for a moment by
a sad smile, and he replies:

“I will come, madam—if I have courage,” he murmurs,
turning away.

“You must; we shall have a merry day, I think.
What a fine assembly!”

“Very gay.”

“Oh, there's Jenny——”

“A friend?”

“Oh, yes!”

And while this conversation proceeds, Jacques is talking
with Lucy. He interrupts himself in the middle
of a sentence, to bow paternally to a young lady who
has just entered.

“Good evening, my dear Miss Merryheart,” he says.

“Oh, sir! that is not my name,” says little Martha,
laughing.

“What is?”

“Martha.”

“And are you not desirous of changing it?”

The girl laughs.

“Say, for Mrs. Jacques?”

“Oh!” cries Martha, with a merry glance and a pleasant
affectation of reserve, “that is too public.”

“The fact is,” replies Jacques, smiling, “you are
looking so lovely, that I could not help it.”

“Oh, sir!” says the girl blushing, but delighted.
Which expression makes her companion—a youthful
gentleman called Bathurst—frown with jealousy.

Lucy is admiring the child, when she finds herself
saluted by Sir Asinus, who has made her acquaintance
some time since.

“A delightful evening, Miss Mowbray,” says that
worthy; “and I find you admiring a very dear friend of
mine.”

“Who is that, sir?” says Lucy, smiling.

“Little Miss Martha.”

“She is your friend?”

“Are you not?” says Sir Asinus, bowing with great

devotion to Martha; “you caught me this morning, you
know.”

“Oh no, sir! you caught me!”

“Indeed!” cried Sir Asinus; “I thought 't was the
lady's part!”

And he relishes his joke so much and laughs so loud,
that the girl discovers her mistake and blushes, which
increases her fresh beauty a thousand-fold.

Sir Asinus heaves a sigh, and contemplates a declaration
immediately. He asks her hand for a quadrille
instead.

“Oh, yes, sir!”

Whereupon Bathurst revolves gloomy thoughts of
revenge in the depths of his soul.

Sir Asinus, seeing his rival's moodiness, smiles; but
this smile disappears like a sunbeam. He sees Doctor
Small approaching, and turns to flee.

In doing so, he runs up against and treads on the toes
of Mr. Jack Denis, who laughs, and bowing to Lucy,
presses toward her and takes his place at her side.

Sir Asinus makes his way through the crowd, paying
his respects to every body.

He arrives, at length, at the door of the side room
where the devotees of cards are busy at tictac. He is
soon seated at one of the tables by the side of Governor
Fanquier, and is playing away with the utmost delight.

In this way the ball commenced; and so it went on
with loud music, and a hum of voices rising almost to a
shout at times, until the supper hour. And then, the profuse
supper having been discussed with that honorable
devotion which ever characterizes Virginians, the dancing
recommenced, more madly than ever.

But let not the reader imagine that the dances of the
old time were like our own. Not at all. They had no
waltzes, polkas, or the like, but dignified quadrilles, and
stately minuets; and it was only when the company had
become perfectly acquainted with each other, at the end
of the assembly, that the reel was inaugurated, with its
wild excessive mirth—its rapid, darting, circling, and
exuberant delight.

Poor Sir Asinus! he had not been well treated by his
lady-love—we mean the little Martha. That young lady
liked the noble knight, but Brutus-like, loved Bathurst
more. The worthy Sir Asinus found his graces of mind
and person no match for the laughing freckled face of
her youthful admirer, and with all the passing hours he
grew more sad.

He ended by offering his heart and hand, we verily
believe, in the middle of a quadrille; but on this point
we are not quite certain. Sure are we that on this night
the great politician found himself defeated by a boy—
this we may assert from after events.

In the excess of his mortification be betook himself to
cards, and was soon sent away penniless. He rose from
the card-table feeling, like Catiline, ripe for conspiracy
and treason. He re-entered the ball-room and strolled
about disconsolate—a stalking ghost.

Just as he made his appearance a lady entered from
the opposite door, and Sir Asinus felt the arm of a gentleman,
against whom he was pressed by the crowd,
tremble. He turned and looked at him. It was Mowbray;
and he was looking at the lady who had just
entered.

This lady was Philippa.