88  THE  BALL  AT  SCEAUX

indeed,  were  some  young  men  who  look  as  though  they  must
have  saved  for  a  month  to  shine  for  a  day ;  and  she  perceived
several  couples  whose  too  hearty  glee  suggested  nothing  con-
jugal; still,  she  could  only  glean  instead  of  gathering  a
harvest.  She  was  amazed  to  see  that  pleasure  in  a  cotton
dress  was  so  very  like  pleasure  rohed  in  satin,  and  that  the
girls  of  the  middle  class  danced  quite  as  well  as  ladies — nay,
sometimes  better.  Most  of  the  women  were  simply  and  suit-
ably dressed.  Those  who  in  this  assembly  represented  the
ruling  power,  that  is  to  say,  the  country-folk,  kept  apart  with
wonderful  politeness.  In  fact,  Mademoiselle  Emilie  had  to
study  the  various  elements  that  composed  the  mixture  before
she  could  find  any  subject  for  pleasantry.  But  she  had  not
time  to  give  herself  up  to  malicious  criticism,  nor  opportunity
for  hearing  many  of  the  startling  speeches  which  caricaturists
so  gladly  pick  up.  The  haughty  young  lady  suddenly  found
a  flower  in  this  wide  field — the  metaphor  is  reasonable
— whose  splendor  and  coloring  worked  on  her  imagination
with  all  the  fascination  of  novelty.  It  often  happens  that
we  look  at  a  dress,  a  hanging,  a  blank  sheet  of  paper,  with
so  little  heed  that  we  do  not  at  first  detect  a  stain  or  a  bright
spot  which  afterwards  strikes  the  eye  as  though  it  had  come
there  at  the  very  instant  when  we  see  it;  and  by  a  sort  of
moral  phenomenon  somewhat  resembling  this.  Mademoiselle
de  Fontaine  discovered  in  a  young  man  the  external  perfec-
tions of  which  she  had  so  long  dreamed.
