ure of the dance, forgetting the profit. How could they do otherwise, with that new blood beating in their veins, and new life bursting in their hearts under the forceful music of Benoit,—that warm, free, full, subtilely sensualized African music? The buds themselves would have burst into blossom under the strains, and the little birds anticipated spring.
"Ah, what a beautiful world it is! How good it is to live! How good God is!"
And it came about as Marie Modeste danced with the young "Parisianized creole;" it is so inexplicable, so indescribable; to state it destroys the delicacy of it; to confess it almost vulgarizes it; but an impression was made on their fresh, impressionable hearts, slight and faint, easy to efface or subdue, but more easily kept alive and fixed. Neither knew—how could they? it was the first time—what it was. A change came over the charm upon her; a dissatisfaction crept into the young girl's heart; her pleasure all departed. When she spoke, it was to perceive that she was silly; she became conscious of marked inferiority in her appearance; she was wearied; and when she looked in
