Alfred de Rosann — page 85: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

76 ALFRED DE ROSANN. speedy announcement of dinner, put an end to any farther conversation for the moment: but it was easy to perceive that Selina wasin much better spirits than she had been during the last four-and-twenty hours. At nine o’clock the carriage drove up to the door, and De Rosann assisted the ladies to ascend the steps. Mr. Robson plead urgent business, that would occupy him all the evening, as an excuse for not accompany- ing them; and De Rosann accordingly occupied his seat. The worthy banker was himself no friend to balls; he liked them well enough for young people who could dance; but he did not think it becoming for an old married man to be seen at places where youth and beauty were alone remarkable and re- cherché. Cards were equally his abhorrence; and on these occasions he was never so much delighted as when he could prevail upon a friend to take his place as chaperon to his family. In twenty minutes the carriage stopped at a house in Jermyn-street. Alfred presented his hand to help the ladies in their descent from the vehicle, and then offered his arm to Mrs. Robson, while the two sisters followed close behind. They were speedily intro- duced to the splendid salons of gaiety and light, where the dancing had already commenced, and where the all-attentive Mrs. Wentworth was busily occupied in receiving her numerous visiters. ‘To some she behaved distantly, but politely,—to others more fa- miliarly,—to several she spokea few words as they passed on—and to a few she tendered two fingers of her right hand. Mrs. Robson was honoured by this last mark of intimacy ; De Rosann was presented in due form, and the Misses Robson were addressed by the fashionable hostess as “her young friends, Mary and Selina.”” When this ceremony was accomplished, De Rosann conducted Mrs. Robson and her daughters to chairs at the farther end of the room; and having en- gaged the hand of Selina for the next guadriéle, he mingled with the gorgeously dressed crowd, under the supposition that during the intervals between each dance it was not customary to lounge near the seats oc- COMMICIOOKSEO