While the revelry was at its fiercest, the
dancing at its loosest, the rooms at their hottest, and the
perspiration at spring-tide, there was a sound of wheels outside,
begetting an instant hush of expectation within. The dancers ceased to
spin, and all the gentlemen crowded about the door. As the Lady
Capilla entered, these instinctively fell into two lines, and she
passed down the space between, with her little tail behind her. As the
end of the latter came into the room, the wigs of the two gentlemen
nearest the door leaped off to join their parent stem. In their haste
to recover them the two gentlemen bent eagerly forward, knocking their
shining pows together with a vehemence that shattered them like
egg-shells. The wigs of the next pair were similarly affected; and in
seeking to recover them the pair similarly perished. Then, _crack!
spat! pash!_--at every step the lady took there were two heads that
beat as one. In three minutes there was but a single living male in
the room. He was an odd one, who, having a lady opposite him, had
merely pitched himself headlong into her stomach, doubling her like a
lemon-squeezer.
It was merry to see the Lady Capilla floating through the mazy dance
that night, with all those wigs fighting for their old places in her
pigtail.
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