in his nature to recognise the victim of his pullikens in the lady before him.

66

teeth.

"I am that lady," rejoined his visiter, “ d I have come to restore your money, and to beg you to replace my teeth." Most cheerfully! here they are, t the identical t Madame Flowerby changed her mind about them ten times in one week--in the next week she died. I kept them as models, and beautiful ones they are."

The lady then rose, and after informing him where she lodged, desired him to call the next day and inquire for Mrs. Linton.

BY MISS ANNE MARIA SARGEANT.

I see her listen to his words

As though her very life would bound
In that dear voice, and nought affords
Her half the bliss of that sweet sound:
Music is discord-every joy

Sinks in comparison with this;
To love him is her soul's employ,
And his approving smile her bliss.

If he dejected looks, she charms
All sorrow distant by her glance;
She has a magic which disarms

Grief of its poignancy. A trance
Of blissfulness her life appears,
Without one single cloud to shade:
Oh never may succeeding years

Her early bloom of pleasure fade.

With such a partner is he blest,
His life is fraught with extacy;
She gives to happiness a zest,
Her love is his felicity:

Her beaming smile repays his cares,
Hope's brightest joys on her attend;"
She in one blended form appears, BIL CHA**

L. 33. 2.

The wife, the mistress, and the friend.

S

THE DANCING SCHOOL.

A SKETCHBY MISS M. L. BEEVOR.

Owld up your ha-ad! Pint your toes! and chassez forwards. Instructions of a Maitre du Danse.

"Come in! pray come in !-Monsieur Grenouille, 'tis only a friend of mine, whom I took the liberty to ask here to-day, to see your pupils perform," exclaimed Mrs. West, as she beheld my head thrust in at the door of the dancing-room, where the mysteries, in which M. Grenouille was initiator, were exhibited. My head was thrust forwards with an expression that asked, though not vocally, "May I venture in ?” By all means," answered Monsieur, with that mental prevoyance, that happy facility of interpreting thoughts, which some people possess in a remarkable degree, "by all means, walk in; I shall esteem it un compliment tres grand." Thus invited, I entered, but how awkwardly enough; since, as I paced from the bottom to the top of a long room, I felt nervously conscious that I ran the gauntlet of one universal stare, from a hundred eyes; for about fifty people were ranged on forms round the apartment, not like mummies in an Egyptian catacomb, they were too much upon the qui vive, and assuredly not like dumb-ies, as my sensitive ears informed me, but rather like members of the Inquisition, sworn to condemn whosoever entered that fatal chamber. Between Mrs. West and Mrs. Osborne I found a seat, and here having happily arrived, methinks a few words are necessary, touching the history of Monsieur Grenouille's dancing-school, academy, or class, as he termed it, though, as we shall presently see, there was more than one of the latter. In "our town," which if Miss Mitford will not write about, perforce I must,-the ladies of superior consideration took their little girls from sundry "Seminaries for Young Ladies," on account of the exceeding influx therein of children of inferior parentage. Governesses at home, pretty well supplied the place of governesses abroad; some taught without the aid of masters, some with, but the donnas unanimously agreed, that no woman could teach dancing "decently," wherefore, after many conclaves and cogitations, it resulted that Monsieur Grenouille, the new

master, whose cards were pinked, satined, watered, engraved, and in French, should entirely supersede the old one, Mr. William Scrape, whose bills, to his eternal shame, went staring abroad on white paper, and in English, too plain not to be comprehended by all the vulgar of -; besides, though ro school-man, he was teacher-general to the schools, and this, in no small degree, assisted to sign his condemnation.. To Monsieur Grenouille accordingly was an embassy dispatched, informing him, that if he did not object to taking a room and a few select pupils, they, the prima donnas of our town, did not object to him as a Maitre du Danse to their children. Monsieur's accedence to this scheme was announced, amid a greater profusion of bows than Mr. William Scrape was ever in his life guilty of committing, and both parties were honored and delighted;" so, every week, and twice every week too, did the juvenile grandees, attended by their governesses and nurses, flock to M. Grenouille's private dancing school, for, it is to be hoped, their entire edification. Now, whether the proceedings of the select committee and the secret chamber, like other conspiracies crept abroad, I dare not pretend to affirm, or whether M. Grenouille's colored, watered, engraved, and en-françaised cards, possessed a charm far superior to the plain unassuming bills of Mr. W. Scrape, but certain it is, the parents of the more plebian grade of children, ere long discovered that it would NOT DO, to go on with Mr. S. at the schools, but that it would DO to honor M. Grenouille with their preference at his room and class. Forthwith, a deputation from the seconda donnas of waited upon Monsieur, who being sounded as to whether he chose to admit amongst really genteel children, those who were not so, civilly and conscientiously averred, that he considered all who took, or might take, lessons of him, at his room, provided they honestly paid for them, "really genteel." Even so, does the itinerant show-man exclaim: "Walk in, ladies and gentlemen, pray walk in," as he fingers the cash of the rabble-rout, who eagerly press forward to behold his exhibition at a provincial fair. I mean not, however, to insinuate by this, that a rabble-rout rolled into the dancing-room of M. Grenouille, but, indubitably, the very plebeian party, from whom such pains had been taken to separate the young patricians, entered it on the

same days with the latter, at the same hours, and to avail themselves of the same lessons. The distinction of ranks seldom enters into the consideration of children, and those of the prima donnas of our town ran joyfully to greet their old associates, the offsprings of the donnas seconda. Upon this inapropos turn of affairs, the select committee called a council, wherein, after much deliberation, it was resolved, that as they had expressly engaged M. Grenouille, they could not, very consistently, disengage him; that he had certainly a right to forward his own interests, though he had not, in so doing, behaved quite handsomely by them; that if other people had money to pay the expenses of a private class education for their children, no power on earth could prevent it; but, that to obviate the apprehended effects of a coalition between the patricians and plebeians, the mamas of the former rank should, in future, attend their children to the dancingschool, in order to prevent their intercourse and familiarity with their little companions of the latter grade. Soon after this arrangement had been carried into effect, the mamas of inferior rank thought proper, for some unaccountable reason, also to attend their pets to the dancing-school, which accounts for the great assembly I beheld of "children of a larger growth," at Monsieur's academy, and the awful scrutiny with which I, a mere interloper, was favored by them, upon my entrance.

Having regained some degree of self possession, I took courage to gaze round the room, and speedily beheld the line of demarcation between patricians and plebeians, as visibly drawn to the eye coporeal, as was the distinction to the eye mental. Indeed, it might be seen, with "half an eye," how matters stood, the adverse parties kept to their ranks on either side the room, and the children of the two castes did not dance together; the one occupied the upper end of the apartment, the other the lower; whilst the looks of the powers who were at drawn daggers with each other, and yet could not use that little instrument which is "sharper than a sword," were truly delectable: in this manner, too, I observed, with pain, (otherwise such an exhibition of petty pride and spite was highly farcical) some of the more adolescent juveniles on both sides, endeavouring to imitate the example thus indiscreetly set them by their parents! Alas! my attention was next

directed to the Grenouille himself. Many English people have an idea that a Frenchman is necessarily an under-sized, little, lank, limber creature, with a pale, wizen face, and black hair, straggling in elf-locks about his ears, as if he fed upon gnats and soup-maigre all his days, and had suffered the mischance of falling into the cauldron wherein the latter was boiling; I will not say that I thought so, because I happen to know some very handsome Frenchmen, who are as much like tall, well-formed, and handsome Englishmen as possible, but I was a little astonished to behold a Maître du Danse as thickset and bony as a highland drover. His legs were veiled in trowsers, but doubtlessly they corresponded with his stalwart upper frame; and his large hands busily employed in eliciting many a dolorous screech from a tuneless and wretched little kit, almost extinguished it. Poor Monsieur Grenouille! all unlike the agile creature whose name he bore, did, indeed, essay to leap with lightness, but a heavy task it seemed to him; so, in a chassez forwards, he gallop. ped round the room à la Buffalo instead of à la Taglioni, whilst the skirts of his coat flapped time, followed by a host of girls and boys of all calibres, like a herd of wild colts or asses. However, I will not weary you, reader, by detailing the minutiae of proceedings to which I was an attentive witness, particularly as they brought to my own mind, and may do so to yours, certain reminiscences of a description not very agreeable 1 will not fatigue attention by recounting those pet dancing-master phrases, which Grenouille, if he were really a native of France, had got up in English, tenderly considering the ignorance of the set of little Britons he had to teach, as "Heads up, ladies!"-" Pint you toes!"

1

Soulders back!"-"Ronde you harms!". B-ys! turn out you feet!"-" Not soche a nise, gentlemen, if you please," &c. &c. Neither will I hurt the feelings of any excellent member of the "Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Animals," whose eyes may chance to glance over this article, by a detail of the shakings, drillings, stock and back-board discipline, to which I was a witness; nor the eraps with the kit-stick, to enforce obedience and silence, sometimes bestowed on the end of a bench," poor dumb thing!" but oftener on the impenetrable pate of some luckless gentleman archin. I will not detail the comfortable gossip that passed between