The entertainments of this evening consisted of a ball and supper; it
was a fancy ball, and the company danced in groups in the gardens,
which were very extensive. The high and luxuriant trees, under which
the groups assembled, were illuminated with a profusion of lamps,
disposed with taste and fancy. The gay and various dresses of the
company, some of whom were seated on the turf, conversing at their
ease, observing the cotillons, taking refreshments, and sometimes
touching sportively a guitar; the gallant manners of the gentlemen,
the exquisitely capricious air of the ladies; the light fantastic
steps of their dances; the musicians, with the lute, the hautboy, and
the tabor, seated at the foot of an elm, and the sylvan scenery of
woods around were circumstances, that unitedly formed a
characteristic and striking picture of French festivity. Emily
surveyed the gaiety of the scene with a melancholy kind of pleasure,
and her emotion may be imagined when, as she stood with her aunt,
looking at one of the groups, she perceived Valancourt; saw him
dancing with a young and beautiful lady, saw him conversing with her
with a mixture of attention and familiarity, such as she had seldom
observed in his manner.
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