But as I was still listening, and hearing nothing further, all in a
moment the vast hall filled as if by magic with a numerous company; the
spinet began to jingle; there was music and singing of love, and
pleasure, and wine.
I gazed and saw by the bluish-grey moonlight ladies in the bloom of youth
negligently floating over the floor, and chiefly about the old spinet;
elegant cavaliers attired, as in the olden time, in innumerable dangling
ribbons, and the very perfection of lace collars and ruffles, seated
cross-legged upon gold-fringed stools, affectedly inclining sidelong,
shaking their perfumed locks, making little bows, studying all kinds of
graceful attitudes, and paying their court to the ladies, all so
elegantly, and with such an air of gallantry, that it reminded me of the
old mezzotint engravings of the graceful school of Lorraine in the
sixteenth century.
And the stiff little fingers of an ancient dowager, with a parrot bill,
were rattling the keys of the old spinet; bursts of thin laughter set
discordant echoes flying, and ended in little squeaks with such a sharp
discordant rattle of constrained laughter as made my hair stand on end.
Pages:
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217