United States or Trinidad and Tobago ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
One day the Baronet surprised "her ladyship," as he jocularly called her, seated at that old and tuneless piano in the drawing-room, which had scarcely been touched since Becky Sharp played quadrilles upon it seated at the piano with the utmost gravity and squalling to the best of her power in imitation of the music which she had sometimes heard.
Forty years long have people been dancing the quadrilles now in vogue, which consist of six favourite country-dances, fashionable in Paris at the close of the last century, and then singly known by the names they still retain "La Poule, L'Eté, Le Pantalon, Le Trenis," &c. &c.
They could speak a little bad French, play the piano, dance quadrilles, and had formed high acquaintances; but the Trotters were not to be distanced. When the Lambs appeared with two feathers in their hats, the Miss Trotters mounted four, and of twice as fine colors.
Agatha had no dress that was good enough, so I charged Madame Dupre to provide one at my expense, and I was well served. It is well known that when this sort of people dip their fingers into other's purses they are not sparing, but that was just what I wanted. Agatha promised to dance all the quadrilles with me, and to return to Turin with Madame Dupre.
He turned to Lacey eagerly. Lacey was watching with eyes screwed up shrewdly, his forehead shining with sweat. "Saadat," he said suddenly, "this isn't the usual set of quadrilles. It's the real thing. They're watching the river waiting." "But south!" was David's laconic response. At the same moment he struck a gong. An orderly entered. Giving swift instructions, he turned to Lacey again.
It is of a pretty grey colour, with red bill and red legs. The brolga has a taste for dancing; flocks of this bird may be seen solemnly going through quadrilles and lancers of their own invention on the plains.
I humbly conceive, and steal my notion from the same ancestral source, that, in nine cases out of ten, fools build houses for wise men to live in; besides, if houses be made a test of supreme manhood, your modern wholesale runner-up of lath and plaster tenements, warranted to stand seven years provided quadrilles be excluded, and no larger flock of guests than six be permitted to settle on one spot such a jackal for surgeons, such a reprobate provider for accident-wards as this, would be among our heroes, a prize-man, the flower of the species.
After each of the two had declared the other to be a remarkable specimen of the species man, and made a good many remarks on the futility of dancing, they began to talk of the melancholy influence of the moon. Then they returned to the ball-room and took their place in a set of quadrilles.
Polk was prevented from attending by the indisposition of his wife, but the Vice-President-elect, Mr. Dallas, with his splendid crown of white hair, towered above all other guests except General Scott and "Long John" Wentworth. There was dancing in the East Room, Mrs. Tyler leading off in the first set of quadrilles with Mr. Wilkins, the Secretary of War, as her partner.
Mr Toots also showed him, by holding up a companion sheet of paper, that Doctor and Mrs Blimber requested the pleasure of Mr Toots's company at an early party on Wednesday Evening the Seventeenth Instant, when the hour was half-past seven o'clock, and when the object was Quadrilles.
Word Of The Day