The town of Wimborne, in Dorsetshire, boasts the possession of a very ancient cathedral-like church, dignified with the title of Minster, but, with this exception, is as utterly devoid, we believe, of all interest to the traveller, as any of the numerous country-towns which he rapidly passes through, and so gladly quits, wondering for the moment how it is that any one can possibly consent to be left behind in them. He who has journeyed from Southampton to Poole will remember the town, from the circumstance that he quitted by the same narrow streets by which he entered it, his road not passing directly through, but forming an angle at this point. He will call to mind what appeared an unaccountable turning and twisting about of the coach, whilst the horses were being changed, and a momentary alarm at finding that he was retracing his steps; he will remember the two massive square towers of the old church, peering above the roofs of the houses; and this is all that he will know, or have the least desire to know, of the town of Wimborne.

If, however, the traveller should be set down in this quiet place, and be compelled to wait there half a day for the arrival of some other coach to carry him to his destination, he will probably wile away his time by a visit to its antique and venerable church; and after climbing, by the dark and narrow staircase, to the top of one of its towers, he will be somewhat surprised to find himself—in a library! A small square room is fitted up with shelves, whereon a number of books are deposited, and the centre is occupied by a large reading-desk, and a massive oak table, apparently coeval with the tower itself, and which was probably placed there before the roof was put on, since it never could have been introduced by the stairs or through the window. It is no modern library, be it understood—no vestry reading-room connected with the Sunday school of the place; they are old books, black-letter quartos, illuminated missals, now dark and mouldy, and whose parchment has acquired no pleasant odour from age. By no means is it a circulating library, for some of the books are still chained to the reading-desk; and many more have their rusty iron chain twisted about them, by which they, in their turn, were bound to the desk. If the traveller should not be favoured with that antiquarian taste which finds a charm in decyphering, out of mouldy and black-letter volumes, what would not be worth his perusal in the most luxurious type of modern days, he will at least derive some pleasure from opening the little windows of the tower, and inhaling the fresh breeze that will blow in upon him, and in looking over an extensive prospect of green meadows, with their little river meandering about in them. It must have formed a pleasant retreat at one time to the two or three learned clerks, or minor canons, or neighbouring monks or friars—we may be sure there were never many of such students—who used to climb this turret for their morning or their evening lucubrations.

The only student who had, perhaps for some centuries, frequented it—and she brought her own books with her, and was very unlike either learned clerk, or monk, or friar—was Mildred Willoughby. She used to delight—a taste savouring of extreme youth—to bring the book she was perusing from her own comfortable parlour, to climb up with it to this solitary height, and there read it alone. She had no difficulty in obtaining from the parish-clerk permission to be left in this chosen solitude—to draw the one wooden chair it possessed to the window, and there to sit, and read, or muse, or look upon the landscape, just as long as she pleased. It did not very frequently happen that this functionary was called upon to exhibit the old tower to the curiosity of strangers; but if this occurred whilst she was thus occupied, she would rise from her seat, and for a moment put on the air of a visitor also—walk slowly round the room, looking at the backs of the books, or out of the window at the prospect, as if she saw them for the first time! and when the company had retreated, (and there was little to detain them long,) would quietly return to her chair, her study, or her reverie.

One reason she might have given, beside the romantic and pensive mood it inspired, for her choice of this retreat—the charm of being alone. Nothing could be more quiet—to look at the exterior—than the house she called her home. It stood at the extremity of the town, protected from the road by its own neat inclosure of turf and gravel-walk—surely as remote from every species of disturbance or excitement as the most devoted student could desire. We question even whether a barrel-organ or a hurdy-gurdy was ever known to commit an outrage upon its tranquillity; and for its interior, were not Mr and Miss Bloomfield (they were brother and sister, uncle and aunt of Mildred) the most staid, orderly, methodical persons in the world? Did not the bachelor uncle cover every part of the house, and the kitchen stairs in particular, with thick carpet, in order that the footsteps of John and the maid should not disquiet him? The very appearance of the garden, both before and behind the house, was sufficient to show how orderly a genius presided over it. Could box be cut more neatly? or gravel-walks be kept cleaner? You saw a tall lance-like instrument standing by the steps of the back-door, its constant place. With this Mr Bloomfield frequently made the circuit of his garden, but with no hostile purpose: he merely transfixed with it the dry leaves or the splinters of wood that had strayed upon his gravel, carrying them off in triumph to a neat wooden receptacle, where they were both imprisoned and preserved. And Miss Bloomfield, she also was one of the most amiable of women, and as attached to a quiet and orderly house as her brother. Neither could any two persons be more kind, or more fond of their niece, than they were. But it was from this very kindness, this very fondness, that Mildred found it so pleasant at times to escape. Her aunt, especially, was willing to grant her any indulgence but that of being alone. This her love for her niece, and her love of talking, would rarely permit. Neither could Mildred very graciously petition for this unsocial privilege. In youth, nothing is so delightful as solitude, especially when it is procured by stealth, by some subtle contrivance, some fiction or pretence; and many a time did her aunt find it necessary to pursue Mildred to her own chamber, and many a time did she bring her down into the parlour, repeating, with unfeigned surprise, and a tone of gentle complaint, the always unanswerable question—what she could be doing so long in her own room? Therefore it was that she was fain to steal out alone—take her walk through the churchyard, ascend the tower, enter its little library, and plant herself in its old arm-chair for an hour of solitary reading or thinking.

Mildred Willoughby was born in India, and her parents (the greatest misery attendant upon a residence in that climate) were compelled to send her to England to be reared, as well as educated. She had been placed under the care of her uncle and aunt. These had always continued to live together—bachelor and spinster. As their united incomes enabled them to surround themselves with every comfort and personal luxury, and as they were now of a very mature age, it was no longer considered to be in the chapter of probabilities that either of them would change their condition. Miss Bloomfield, in her youth, was accounted a beauty—the belle of Wimborne; and we may be sure that personal charms, a very amiable disposition, and a considerable fortune, could not fail to bring her numerous admirers and suitors. But her extreme placidity of temper no passion seems ever to have ruffled; and it did so happen, that though her hand had often been solicited, no opportunity of marriage had been offered to her which would not have put in jeopardy some of those comforts and indulgences to which she was habituated. She was pleased with the attentions of gentlemen, and was studious to attract them; but there was nothing in that word love which could have compensated for the loss of her favourite attendants, or of that pretty little carriage that drew her about the country.

As for Mr Bloomfield, it was generally supposed that he had suffered from more than one tender disappointment, having always had the misfortune to fix his affections just where they could not be returned. But those who knew him well would say, that Josiah Bloomfield was, in fact, too timid and irresolute a man ever to have married—that being himself conscious of this, yet courting, at the same time, the excitement of a tender passion, he invariably made love where he was sure to be rejected. Many a fascinating girl came before him, whom he might have won, from whose society, for this very reason, he quietly withdrew, to carry his sighs to some quarter where a previous engagement, or some other obstacle, was sure to procure him a denial. He thus had all the pleasing pains of wooing, and earned the credit for great sensibility, whilst he hugged himself in the safe felicity of a single life. By this time, a more confirmed or obdurate bachelor did not exist; yet he was pleased to be thought to wear the willow, and would, from time to time, endeavour to extort compassion by remote hints at the sufferings he had endured from unreturned affection.

Two such persons, it will be supposed, were at first somewhat alarmed at the idea of taking into their establishment a little girl about four or five years old. Indeed, they had, in the first instance, only so far agreed to take charge of her as to find her a fit school—to receive her at the holidays—and, in this distant manner, superintend her education. But Mildred proved so quiet, so tractable, and withal so cheerful a child, that they soon resolved to depart from this plan. She had not been long in the house before it would have been a great distress to both of them to have parted with her. It was determined that she should reside perpetually with them, and that the remittances received from India should be employed in obtaining the very best masters that could be procured from Bath or Exeter. Mr Bloomfield found, in the superintendence of Mildred's education, an employment which made the day half as short as it had ever been before. He was himself a man fond of reading; and if he had not a very large store of thoughts, he had at least an excellent library, into which Mildred, who had now arrived at the age of fifteen, had already begun to penetrate.

And books—her music—&c., a few friends, more distinguished by good-breeding and good-nature than by any vivacity of mind, were all the world of Mildred Willoughby, and it was a world that there seemed little probability of her getting beyond. It had been expected that about this time she would have returned to India to her parents; but her mother had died, and her father had expressed no wish that she should be sent out to him. On the contrary, beyond certain pecuniary remittances, and these came through an agent's hands, there was nothing to testify that he bore any remembrance of his daughter. Of her father, very contradictory reports had reached her; some said that he had married again, and had formed an engagement of which he was not very proud; others that he had quitted the service, and was now travelling, no one knew where, about the world. At all events, he appeared to have forgotten that he had a daughter in England; and Mildred was almost justified in considering herself—as she did in her more melancholy moments—as in fact an orphan, thrown upon the care of an uncle and aunt, and dependent almost entirely upon them.

One fine summer's day, as she was enjoying her lofty solitude in the minster tower, a visitor had been allowed to grope up his way unattended into its antique library. On entering, he was not a little startled to see before him in this depository of mouldering literature a blooming girl in all the freshness and beauty of extreme youth. He hesitated a moment whether to approach and disturb so charming a vision. But, indeed, the vision was very soon disturbed. For Mildred, on her side, was still more startled at this entrance, alone and suddenly, of a very handsome young man—for such the stranger was—and blushed deeply as she rose from her chair and attempted to play as usual the part of casual visitor. He bowed—what could he less?—and made some apology for his having startled her by his abrupt entrance.

The stranger's manner was so quiet and unpresuming, that the timidity of Mildred soon disappeared, and before she had time to think what was most proper to do, she found herself in a very interesting conversation with one who evidently was as intelligent as he was well-bred and good-looking. She had let fall her book in her hurry to rise. He picked it up, and as he held the elegantly bound volume in his hand, which ludicrously contrasted with the mouldy and black-letter quartos that surrounded them, he asked with a smile, on which shelf he was to deposit it. "This fruit," said he, "came from another orchard." And seeing the title at the back, he added, "Italian I might have expected to find in a young lady's hand, but I should have looked for a Tasso, not an Alfieri."

"Yes," she replied gaily, "a damsel discovered reading in this old turret ought to have book of chivalry in her hand. I have read Tasso, but I do not prefer him. Alfieri presents me quite as much as Tasso with a new world to live in, and it is a more real world. I seem to be learning from him the real feelings of men."

The stranger was manifestly struck by this kind of observation from one so young, and still more by the simple and unpretending manner in which it was uttered. Mildred had not the remotest idea of talking criticism, she was merely expressing her own unaffected partialities. He would have been happy to prolong the conversation, but the clerk, or verger, who had missed his visitor—as well he might, for his visitor had purposely given him the slip, as all wise men invariably do to all cicerones of whatever description—had at length tracked his fugitive up the tower, and into the library. His entrance interrupted their dialogue, and compelled the stranger very soon afterwards to retreat. He made his bow to the fair lady of the tower and descended.

Mildred read very little more that day, and if she lingered somewhat longer in meditation, her thoughts had less connexion than ever with antiquities of any kind. She descended, and took her way home. The probability that she might meet the stranger in passing through the town—albeit there was nothing, disagreeable in the thought—made her walk with unusual rapidity, and bend her eyes pertinaciously upon the ground. The consequence of which was, that in turning the corner of a street which she passed almost every day of her life, she contrived to entangle her dress in some of the interesting hardware of the principal ironmonger of the place, who, for the greater convenience of the inhabitants, was accustomed to advance his array of stoves and shovels far upon the pavement, and almost before their feet. As she turned and stooped to disengage her dress, she found that relief and rescue were already at hand. The stranger knight, who had come an age too late to release her as a captive from the tower, was affording the best assistance he could to extricate her from entanglement with a kitchen-range. Some ludicrous idea of this kind occurred to both at the same time—their eyes met with a smile—and their hands had very nearly encountered as they both bent over the tenacious muslin. The task, however, was achieved, and a very gracious "thank you" from one of the most musical of voices repaid the stranger for his gallantry.

That evening Mildred happened to be sitting near the window—it must have been by merest hazard, for she very rarely occupied that part of the room—as the Bath coach passed their gates. A gentleman seated on the roof appeared to recognise her—at least, he took his hat off as he passed. Was it the same?—and what if it were? Evidently he was a mere passer-by, who had been detained in the town a few hours, waiting for this coach. Would he ever even think again of the town of Wimborne—of its old minster—or its tower—and the girl he surprised sitting there, in its little antique library?

Chapter II.

Between two or three years have elapsed, and our scene changes from the country town of Wimborne to the gay and pleasant capital of Belgium.

Mr and Miss Bloomfield had made a bold, and, for them, quite a tremendous resolution, to take a trip upon the Continent, which should extend—as far as their courage held out. The pleasure and profit this would afford their niece, was no mean inducement to the enterprise. Mr Bloomfield judged that his ward, after the course of studies she had pursued, and the proficiency she had attained in most feminine accomplishments, was ripe to take advantage of foreign travel. Mr Bloomfield judged wisely; but Mr Bloomfield neither judged, nor was, perhaps, capable of judging how far, in fact, the mind of his niece had advanced, or what singular good use she had made of his own neglected library. She had been grappling with all sorts of books—of philosophy and of science, as well as of history and poetry. But that cheerful quietude which distinguished her manner, concealed these more strenuous efforts of her mind. She never talked for display—she had, indeed, no arena for display—and the wish for it was never excited in her mind. What she read and thought, she revolved in herself, and was perfectly content. How it might have been had she lived amongst those who would have called her forth, and overwhelmed her with praise, it would be difficult to tell. As it was, Mildred Willoughby presented to the imagination the most fascinating combination of qualities it would be possible to put together. A young girl of most exquisite beauty, (she had grown paler than when we last saw her, but this had only given increased lustre to her blue eye)—of manners the most unaffected—of a temper always cheerful, always tranquil—was familiar with trains of deep reflection—possessed a practised intellect and really cultivated mind. In this last respect, there was not a single person in all Wimborne or its neighbourhood who had divined her character. That she was a charming girl, though a little too pale—very amiable, though a little too reserved—of a temper provokingly calm, for she was not ruffled even where she ought to be—and that she sang well, and played well; such would have been the summary of her good qualities from her best and most intimate friends. She was now enjoying, with her uncle and aunt—but in a manner how different from theirs!—the various novelties, great and small, which a foreign country presents to the eye.

Those who, in their travels, estimate the importance of any spot by its distance or its difficulty of access, will hardly allow such a place as Brussels to belong to foreign parts. It is no more than an excursion to Margate: it is but a day's journey. True; but your day's journey has brought you to another people—to another religion. We are persuaded that a man shall travel to Timbuctoo, and he shall not gain for himself a stronger impression of novelty, than a sober Protestant shall procure by entering the nearest country where the Roman Catholic worship is in full practice. He has seen cathedrals—many and beautiful—but they were mere architectural monuments, half deserted, one corner only employed for the modest service of his church—the rest a noble space for the eye to traverse, in which he has walked, hat in hand, meditating on past times and the middle ages. But if he cross the Channel, those past times—they have come back again; those middle ages—he is in the midst of them. The empty cathedral has become full to overflowing; there are the lights burning in mid-day, and he hears the Latin chant, and sees high-priests in gorgeous robes making mystic evolutions about the altar; and there is the incense, and the sprinkling of holy water, and the tinkling bell, and whatever the Jew or the Pagan has in times past bequeathed to the Christian. Or let him only look up the street. Here comes, tottering in the air, upon the shoulders of its pious porters, Our Lady herself, with the Holy Child in one arm, and her sceptre in the other, and the golden crown upon her head. Here she is in her satin robe, stiff with embroidery, and gay with lace, and decked with tinsel ornaments beyond our power of description. If the character of the festival require it, she is borne by six or eight maidens clad in white, with wreaths of white roses on their heads; and you hear it whispered, as they approach, that such a one is beautiful Countess of C——; and, countess or not, there is amongst those bearers a face very beautiful, notwithstanding that the heat of the day, and a burden of no light weight, has somewhat deranged the proportions of the red and white which had been so cunningly laid on. And then comes the canopy of cloth of gold, borne over the bare head of the venerable priest, who holds up to the people, inclosed in a silver case, imitative of rays of glory, the sacred host; holds it up with both his hands, and fastens both his eyes devoutly on the back of it; and boys in their scarlet tunics, covered with white lace, are swinging the censor before it; and the shorn priests on each side, with lighted tapers in their hands, tall as staves, march, chanting forth—we regret to say, with more vehemence than melody.

Is not all this strange enough? The state-carriage of the King of the Ashantees was, some years ago, captured in war, and exhibited in London; and a curious vehicle it was, with its peacocks' feathers, and its large glass beads hung round the roof to glitter and jingle at the same time. But the royal carriage of the Ashantees, or all that the court of the Ashantees could possibly display, is not half so curious, half so strange to any meditative spirit, as this image of the Holy Virgin met as it parades the streets, or seen afterwards deposited in the centre of the temple, surrounded by pots of flowers, real and artificial, by vases filled with lilies of glazed muslin, and altogether tricked out with such decorations as a child would lavish on its favourite doll if it had an infinite supply of tinsel.

And they worship that!

"No!" exclaims some very candid gentleman. "No sir, they by no means worship it; and you must be a very narrow-minded person if you think so. Such images are employed by the Catholic as representatives, as symbols only—visible objects to direct his worship to that which is invisible." O most candid of men! and most liberal of Protestants! we do not say that Dr Wiseman or M. Chateaubriand worship images. But just step across the water—we do not ask you to travel into Italy or Spain, where the symptoms are ten times more violent—just walk into some of these churches in Belgium, and use your own eyes. It is but a journey of four-and-twenty hours; and if you are one of those who wish to bring into our own church the more frequent use of form and ceremony and visible symbol, it will be the most salutory journey you ever undertook. Meanwhile consider, and explain to us, why it is—if images are understood to have only this subordinate function—that one image differs so much from another in honour and glory. This Virgin, whom we have seen parade the streets, is well received and highly respected; but there are other Virgins—ill-favoured, too, and not at all fit to act as representatives of any thing feminine—who are infinitely more honoured and observed. The sculpture of Michael Angelo never wins so much devotion as you shall see paid here, in one of their innumerable churches, to a dark, rude, and odious misrepresentation of Christ. They put a mantle on it of purple cotton, edged with white, and a reed in its hand, and they come one after the other, and kiss its dark feet; and mothers bring their infants, and put their soft lips to the wound that the nail made, and then depart with full sense of an act of piety performed. And take this into account, that such act of devotion is no casual enthusiasm, no outbreak of passionate piety overleaping the bounds of reason; it is done systematically, methodically; the women come with their green tin cans, slung upon their arm, full of their recent purchases in the market, you see them enter—approach—put down the can—kiss—take up the can, and depart. They have fulfilled a duty.

But we have not arrived in Brussels to loiter in churches or discuss theology.

"Monsieur and the ladies will go to the ball to-night," said their obliging host to our party. "It is an annual ball," he continued, "given by the Philanthropical Society for the benefit of the poor. Their Majesties, the king and the queen, will honour it with their presence, and it is especially patronised by your fair countrywomen.

"Enough," said Mr Bloomfield; "we will certainly go to the ball. To be in the same room with a living king and queen—it is an opportunity by no means to be lost."

"And then," said Miss Bloomfield, "it is an act of charity."

This species of charity is very prevalent at Brussels. You dance there out of pure commiseration. It is an excellent invention, this gay benevolence. You give, and you make no sacrifice; you buy balls and concerts with the money you drop into the beggar's hat; charity is all sweetness. Poverty itself wears quite a festive air; the poor are the farmers-general of our pleasures; it is they who give the ball. Long live the dance! Long live the poor!

They drive to the ball-room in the Rue Ducale. They enter an oblong room, spacious, of good proportions, and brilliantly lit up with that gayest of all artificial lights—the legitimate wax candle, thickly clustered in numerous chandeliers. Two rows of Corinthian columns support the roof, and form a sort of arcade on either side for spectators or the promenade, the open space in the centre being, of course, devoted to the dance. At the upper end is a raised dais with chairs of state for their Majesties. What, in day-time, were windows are filled with large mirrors, most commodiously reflecting the fair forms that stand or pass before them. How smooth is the inlaid polished floor! and how it seems to foretell the dance for which its void space is so well prepared! No incumbrance of furniture here; no useless decorations. Some cushioned forms covered with crimson velvet, some immense vases occupying the corners of the room filled with exotic plants, are all that could be admitted of one or the other.

The orchestra, established in a small gallery over the door, strikes up the national air, and the royal party, attended by their suite, proceed through the centre of the room, bowing right and left. They take their seats. That instant the national air changes to a rapid waltz, and in the twinkling of an eye, the whole of that spacious floor is covered thick with the whirling multitude. The sober Mr Bloomfield, to whom such a scene is quite a novelty, grows giddy with the mere view of it. He looks with all his might, but he ought to have a hundred pairs of eyes to watch the mazes of this dance. One couple after another appear and vanish as if by enchantment. He sees a bewitching face—he strives to follow it—impossible!—in a minute fifty substitutes are presented to him—it is lost in a living whirlpool of faces.

To one long accustomed to the quiet and monotony of a country life, it would be difficult to present a spectacle more novel or striking than this of a public ball-room; and though for such a novelty it was not necessary to cross the water, yet assuredly, in his own country, Mr Bloomfield would never have been present at such a spectacle. We go abroad as much to throw ourselves for a time into new manners of life, as to find new scenes of existence. He stood bewildered. Some two hundred couples gyrating like mad before him. Sometimes the number would thin, and the fervour of the movement abate—the floor began, in parts, to be visible—the storm and the whirlwind were dying away. But a fresh impulse again seized on both musicians and dancers—the throng of these gentle dervishes, of these amiable mÆnads, became denser than ever—the movement more furious—the music seemed to madden them and to grow mad itself: he shut his eyes, and drew back quite dizzy from the scene.

It is a singular phenomenon, this waltz, retained as it is in the very heart of our cold and punctilious civilisation. How have we contrived, amidst our quiet refinement and fastidious delicacy, to preserve an amusement which has in it the very spirit of the Cherokee Indian? There is nothing sentimental—nothing at all, in the waltz. In this respect, mammas need have no alarm. It is the mere excitement of rapid movement—a dextrous and delirious rotation. It is the enthusiasm only of the feet—the ecstacy of mere motion. Yes! just at that moment when, on the extended arm of the cavalier, the soft and rounded arm of his partner is placed so gently and so gracefully—(as for the hand upon the whalebone waist no electricity comes that way)—just then there may be a slight emotion which would be dangerous if prolonged; but the dance begins, and there is no room for any other rapture than that of its own swift and giddy course. There are no beatings of the heart after that; only pulsations of the great artery.

Found where it is, it is certainly a remarkable phenomenon, this waltz. Look now at that young lady—how cold, formal, stately!—how she has been trained to act the little queen amongst her admirers and flatterers! See what a reticence in all her demeanour. Even feminine curiosity, if not subdued, has been dissimulated; and though she notes every thing and every body, and can describe, when she returns home, the dress of half the ladies in the room, it is with an eye that seems to notice nothing. Her head has just been released from the hair-dresser, and every hair is elaborately adjusted. To the very holding of an enormous bouquet, "round as my shield," which of itself seems to forbid all thoughts of motion—every thing has been arranged and re-arranged. She sits like an alabaster figure; she speaks, it is true, and she smiles as she speaks; but evidently the smile and the speech have no natural connexion with one another; they co-exist, but they have both been quite separately studied, prepared, permitted. Well, the waltz strikes up, and at a word from that bowing gentleman, himself a piece of awful formality, this pale, slow, and graceful automaton has risen. Where is she now? She is gone—vanished—transformed. She is nowhere to be seen. But in her stead there is a breathless girl, with flushed cheeks, ringlets given to the wind, dress flying all abroad, spinning round the room, darting diagonally across it, whirling fast as her little feet can carry her—faster, faster—for it is her more powerful cavalier, who, holding her firmly by the waist, sustains and augments her speed.

Perhaps some ingenious mind may discover a profound philosophy in all this; perhaps, by retaining this authorised outlet for the mere rage of movement, the rest of civilised life is better protected against any disturbance of that quietude of deportment which it is so essential to maintain.

But if the waltz appeared to Mr Bloomfield like dancing gone mad, the quadrille which divided the evening with it, formed a sort of compensation by carrying matters to the opposite extreme. A fly in a glue-pot moves with about the same alacrity, and apparently the same amount of pleasure, as did the dancers this evening in their crowded quadrille. As no one, of course, could be permitted to stand with his back to royalty, they were arranged, not in squares, but in two long files as in a country-dance. The few couples that stood near their majesties were allowed a reasonable share of elbow-room, and could get through their evolutions with tolerable composure. But as the line receded from this point, the dancers stood closer and closer together, and at the other extremity of the room it became nothing less than a dense crowd; a crowd where people were making the most persevering and ingenious efforts to accomplish the most spiritless of movements—with a world of pains just crawling in and out again. The motions of this dancing crowd viewed from a proper elevation, would exactly resemble those slow and mysterious evolutions one sees, on close examination, in the brown dust of a cheese, in that condition which some people call ripe, and others rotten.

As to Miss Bloomfield, she keeps her eyes, for the most part, on the king and queen. Having expected to see them rise and join the dance, she was somewhat disappointed to find them retain their seats, the king chatting to a lady at his right, the queen to a lady on her left. Assuredly, if there were any one in that assembly who had come there out of charity, it was their Majesties. Or rather, they were there in performance of one of the duties of royalty, perhaps not the least onerous, that of showing itself in public on certain occasions. When they rose, it was to take their leave, which they were doubtless very glad to do. Nor, indeed, were those who had been most attracted by the advertised presence of their Majesties sorry to witness their departure. They would carry many away with them—there would be more room for the dance—and the quadrille could reassume its legitimate form.

But Mildred—what was she doing or thinking all this time? To her the scene was entirely new; for though Mr and Miss Bloomfield probably attended county balls in their youth, they had not, for some years, so far deviated from the routine of their lives as to frequent any such assemblies. Besides, she had to encounter, what they certainly had not, the gaze of every eye as she passed, and the whispered exclamations of applause. But to have judged from her manner—from that delightful composure which always distinguished it, as free from insipidity as from trepidation or fluster, you would have thought her quite familiar with such scenes and such triumphs. Reflection supplied the place of experience. You saw that those clear blue eyes, from which she looked out with such a calm and keen inquiry, were by no means to be imposed on; that they detected at once the true meaning of the scene before her. She was solicited to dance, but neither the waltz nor the quadrille were at all enticing, and she contented herself with the part of spectator. Her chief amusement was derived from the novel physiognomies which the room presented; and indeed the assortment, comprising, as it did, a sprinkling of many nations—French and Belgian, English and German—was sufficiently varied. There were even two or three lions of the first magnitude, who (judging from the supreme hauteur with which they surveyed the scene) must have been imported from the patron capital of Paris. Lions, bearded magnificently—no mere luxuriance, or timid overgrowth of hair, but the genuine full black glossy beard—faces that might have walked out of Titian's canvass. Mildred would have preferred them in the canvass; they were much too sublime for the occasion. Then there were two or three young English exquisites, gliding about with that published modesty that proclaimed indifference, which seeks notoriety by the very graceful manner in which it seems struggling to avoid it. You see a smile upon their lips as they disengage themselves from the crowd, as if they rallied themselves for taking any share in the bustle or excitement of the scene; but that smile, be it understood, is by no means intended to escape detection.

There were a greater number of fat and elderly gentlemen than Mildred would have expected, taking part in the dance, or circulating about the room with all or more than the vivacity of youth. How happy!—how supremely blest!—seems that rotund and bald-headed sire, who, standing on the edge of the dais, now forsaken by their Majesties, surveys the whole assembly, and invites the whole assembly to return the compliment. How beautifully the bland sympathy he feels for others mingles with and swells his sense of self-importance! How he dominates the whole scene! How fondly patronises! And then his smile!—why, his heart is dancing with them all; it is beating time to twice two hundred feet. An old friend approaches him—he is happy too—would shake him by the hand. The hand he gives; but he cannot withdraw his eye from the wide scene before him; he cannot possibly call in and limit his sympathies at that moment to one friend, however old and dear. And he who solicits his hand, he also is looking around him at the same time, courting the felicitations of the crowd, who will not fail to observe that he too is there, and there amongst friends.

In the female portion of the assembly there was not so much novelty. Mildred could only remark that there was a large proportion of brunettes, and that the glossy black hair was parted on the head and smoothed down on either side with singular neatness and precision. Two only out of this part of the community attracted her particular notice, and they were of the most opposite description. Near to her stood a lady who might have been either thirty, or forty, or fifty, for all that her sharp and lively features betrayed. She wore one of those small round hats, with the feather drooping round it, which formed, we believe, a part of the costume of Louis XV.; and that which drew the notice of Mildred was the strange resemblance she bore, in appearance and manner, to the portraitures which some French memoirs had made familiar to her imagination. As she watched her in conversation with an officer in full regimentals, who stood by her side, her fancy was transported to Versailles or St Cloud. What a caustic pleasantry! What a malicious vivacity! It was impossible to doubt that the repartees which passed between her and her companion were such as to make the ears of the absent tingle. There were some reputations suffering there as the little anecdote was so trippingly narrated. Her physiognomy was redolent of pleasant scandal—

but to extract a jest, there was no question she would have distilled half the reputations in the room.

The other object of Mildred's curiosity, we pause a moment to describe, because she will cross our path again in the course of this narrative. Amongst all the costly and splendid dresses of her sex, there was a young girl in some simple striped stuff, the most unsophisticated gown imaginable, falling flat about her, with a scanty cape of the same material about her neck—the walking-dress, in short, of a school-girl. The only preparation for the ball-room consisted of a wreath imitative of daisies, just such a wreath as she might have picked up in passing through a Catholic cemetry. And the dress quite suited the person. There she stood with eyes and mouth wide open, as if she saw equally through both apertures, full of irrepressible wonder, and quite confounded with delight. She had been asked to dance by some very young gentleman, but as she elbowed her way through the quadrille, she was still staring right and left with unabated amazement. Mildred smiled to herself as she thought that with the exception of that string of white tufts round her head, no larger than beads, which was to pass for a wreath, she looked for all the world as if some spirit had suddenly snatched her up from the pavement of the High Street of Wimborne, and deposited her in the ball-room of Brussels. Little did Mildred imagine that, that crude little person, absurd, untutored, ridiculous as she was, would one day have it in her power to subdue, and torture, and triumph over her!

CHAPTER III.

Mildred was at this moment checked in her current of observation, and reduced to play something more than the part of spectator. Her ear caught a voice, heard only once before, but not forgotten; she turned, and saw the stranger who had surprised her when, in her girlish days, she was sitting in the minster tower. He immediately introduced himself by asking her to dance.

"I do not dance," she said, but in a manner which did not seem to refuse conversation. The stranger appeared very well satisfied with the compromise; and some pleasant allusion to the different nature of the scene in which they last met, put them at once upon an easy footing.

"You say you do not dance—that is, of course, you will not. I shall not believe," he continued, "even if you had just stepped from your high tower of wisdom, but that you can do any thing you please to do. Pardon so blunt a speech."

"Oh, I can, I think," she replied. "My uncle, I believe, would have taught me the broad-sword exercise, if any one had suggested its utility to him."

And saying this, she turned to her uncle, to give him an opportunity, if he pleased, of joining the conversation. It was an opportunity which Mr Bloomfield, who had heard a foreign language chattered in his ear all the evening, would have gladly taken; but the patience of that gentleman had been for some time nearly exhausted; he had taken his sister under his arm, and was just going to propose to Mildred to leave the room.

The stranger escorted them through the crowd, and saw the ladies into their carriage.

"Can we set you down any where?" said Mr Bloomfield, who, though impatient to be gone, was disposed to be very cordial towards his fellow-countryman. "We are at the Hotel de l'Europe."

"And I opposite at the Hotel de Flandres—I will willingly accept your offer;" and he took the vacant seat in their carriage.

"How do you like Brussels?" was on the lips of both gentlemen at the same time.

"Nay," said the younger, "I have been here, I think, the longest; the question is mine by right of priority of residence."

Mr Bloomfield was nothing loath to communicate his impression of all that he had seen, and especially to dilate upon a grievance which, it seemed, had sorely afflicted him.

"As to the town, old and new, and especially the Grande Place, with its Hotel de Ville, I have been highly interested by it; but, my dear sir, the torture of walking over its horrid pavement! Only conceive a quiet old bachelor, slightly addicted to the gout, accustomed to take his walk over his well-rolled paths, or on his own lawn, (if not too damp,) suddenly put down amongst these cruel stones, rough and sharp, and pitched together in mere confusion, to pick his way how he can, with the chance of being smashed by some cart or carriage, for one is turned out on the same road with the horses. I am stoned to death, with this only difference, that I fall upon the stones instead of the stones falling upon me. And when there is a pavement—a trottoir, as they call it—it is often so narrow and slanting, and always so slippery, and every now and then broken by some step put there purposely, it would seem, to overthrow you, that it is better to bear the penance at once of the sharp footing in the centre of the street. Trottoirs, indeed! I should like to see any one trot upon them without breaking his neck! A spider or a black beetle, or any other creature that crawls upon a multitude of legs, and has not far to fall if he stumbles, is the only animal that is safe upon them. I go moaning all the day about these jogged pointed stones, that pitch me from one to the other with all the malice of little devils; and, would you believe it? my niece there only smiles, and tells me to get thick shoes! They cannot hurt her; she walks somehow over the tops of them as if they were so many balls of Indian rubber, and has no compassion for her gouty uncle."

"Oh, my dear uncle"——

"No, none at all; indeed you are not overburdened with that sentiment at any time for your fellow-travellers. You bear all the afflictions of the road—your own and other people's—very calmly."

"Don't mind him, my dear," said Miss Bloomfield, "he has been exclaiming again and again what an excellent traveller you make; nothing puts you out."

"That is just what I say—nothing does put her out. In that she is a perfect Mephistophiles. You know the scene of confusion on board a steamer when it arrives at Antwerp, and is moored in under the quay on a hot day, with its full complement of passengers. There you are baked by the sun and your own furnaces; stunned by the jabber around you, and the abominable roar over your head made by the escape of the steam; the deck strewed with baggage, which is then and there to be publicly examined—turned over by the revenue officers, who leave you to pack up your things in their original compass, if you can. Well, in all this scene of confusion, there sat my niece with her parasol over her little head, looking quite composedly at the great cathedral spires, as if we were not all of us in a sort of infernal region there."

"No, uncle, I looked every now and then at our baggage, too, and watched that interesting process you have described of its examination. And when the worthy officer was going to crush aunt's bonnet by putting your dressing-case on the top of it, I rose, and arrested him. I had my hand upon his arm. He thought I was going to take him prisoner of war, for he was about to put his hand to his sword; but a second look at his enemy reassured him."

"Oh, you did squeak when the bonnets were touched," cried the uncle, "I am glad of that: it shows that you have some human, at least some feminine, feeling in your composition."

"But Àpropos of the pavement," said the young stranger, who could not join the uncle in this banter on his niece, and was therefore glad to get back to some common ground. "I took up, in a reading-room, the other day, a little pamphlet on phrenology, by M. Victor Idjiez, Fondateur du MusÉe Phrenologique at Brussels. It might as well have been entitled, on animal magnetism, for he is one of those who set the whole man in motion—mind and body both—by electricity. Amongst other things, he has discovered that that singular strength which madmen often display in their fits, is merely a galvanic power which they draw (owing, I suppose, to the peculiar state of their nerves,) from the common reservoir the earth, and which, consequently, forsakes them when they are properly isolated. In confirmation of this theory, he gives a singular fact from a Brussels journal, showing that asphalte pavement will isolate the individual. A madman had contrived to make his escape from confinement, having first thrown all the furniture of his room out of the window, and knocked down and trampled upon his keeper. Off he ran, and no one would venture to stop him. A corporal and four soldiers were brought up to the attack: he made nothing of them; after having beaten the four musketeers, he took the corporal by the leg and again ran off, dragging him after upon the ground. A crowd of work-people emerging from a factory met him in full career with the corporal behind him, and undertook his capture. All who approached him were immediately thrown down—scattered over the plain. But his triumph was suddenly checked; he lighted upon a piece of asphalte pavement. The moment he put his foot upon it, his strength deserted him, and he was seized and taken prisoner. The instant, however, he stepped off the pavement, his strength revived, and he threw his assailants from him with the same ease as before. And thus it continued: whenever he got off the pavement, his strength was restored to him; the moment he touched it, he was again captured with facility. The asphalte had completely isolated him."

"Ha! ha!" cried Mr Bloomfield; "the fellow, after all, was not quite so mad as not to know what he was about. A Brussels pavement, asphalte or not, is no place for a wrestling match. Isolated, indeed! Oh, doubtless, it would isolate you most completely—at least the soles of your feet—from all communication with the earth. But does Mr—what do you call him?—proceed to theorise upon such facts as these?"

"You shall have another of them. Speaking of animal magnetism or electricity, he says—'There are certain patients the iron nails of whose shoes will fly out if they are laid in a direction due north.'"[41]

"But you are quoting from Baron Munchausen."

"Not precisely."

Miss Bloomfield, who had been watching her opportunity, here brought in her contribution. "Pray, sir, do you believe the story they tell of the architect of the Hotel de Ville—that he destroyed himself on finding, after he had built it, that the tower was not in the centre?"

"That the architect should not discover that till the building was finished, is indeed too good a story to be true."

"But, then, why make the man kill himself? Something must have happened; something must be true."

"Why, madam, there was, no doubt, a committee of taste in those days as in ours. They destroyed the plan of the architect by cutting short one of his wings, or prolonging the other; and he, out of vexation, destroyed himself. This is the only explanation that occurs to me. A committee of taste is always, in one sense at least, the death of the artist."

"Yes, yes," said Mildred; "the artist can be no longer said to exist, if he is not allowed, in his own sphere, to be supreme."

This brought them to the door of the hotel. They separated.

The next morning, on returning from their walk, the ladies found a card upon their table which simply bore the name of "Alfred Winston." The gentleman who called with it, the waiter said, had left word that he regretted he was about to quit Brussels, that evening, for Paris.

Mildred read the name several times—Alfred Winston. And this was all she knew of him—the name upon this little card!

There were amongst the trio several discussions as to who or what Mr Alfred Winston might be. Miss Bloomfield pronounced him to be an artist, from his caustic observations on committees of taste, and their meddling propensities. Mr Bloomfield, on the contrary, surmised he was a literary man; for who but such a one would think of occupying himself in a reading-room with a pamphlet on phrenology, instead of the newspapers? And all ended in "wondering if they should fall upon him again?"