emigrated to Virginia, and Hallam, having been unable to find him, had brought Beatrice up under the impression that she was his daughter. As she is disclosing all this to Charles Waters, Efrmgham enters the room, and believing his suspicions confirmed of having a rival in Charles Waters, challenges him to a duel. It is under these circumstances that Effingham insists that Beatrice shall keep the promise which he extorted from her some time earlier in the story to accompany him to the Governor's ball.]
Governor Fauquier's Ball
The day for the meeting of the House of Burgesses had arrived.…
We have already expended some words upon the appearance of the town for days before this important occasion, and can now only add that the bustle was vastly greater, the laughter louder, the crowd larger, and the general excitement a thousand fold increased on this, the long-expected morning. We have no space to enter into a full description of the appearance which the borough presented; indeed, this narrative is not the proper place for such historic disquisitions, dealing as it does with the fortunes of a few personages who pursued their various careers, and laughed and wept, and loved and hated, almost wholly without the "aid of government." It was scarcely very important to Beatrice, for instance, that his Excellency Governor Fauquier set out from the palace to the sound of cannon, and drawn slowly in his splendid chariot with its six glossy snow-white horses, and its bodyguard of cavalry, went to the capitol, and so delivered there his gracious and vice-regal greeting to the Burgesses, listening in respectful, thoughtful silence. The crowd could not drive away the poor girl's various disquieting thoughts; the smile which his Excellency threw towards the Raleigh, and
