(Greek passage)           Alexis: Tarantini.
 
          As men who leave their homes for public games,
          We leave our native element of darkness
          For life's brief light. And who has most of mirth,
          And wine, and love, may, like a satisfied guest,
          Return, contented¹, to the night he sprang from.
In the meantime Mr. Falconer, after staying somewhat longer than usual at home, had returned to the Grange. He found much the same party as he had left: but he observed, or imagined, that Lord Curryfin was much more than previously² in favour with Miss Gryll; that she paid him more marked attention, and watched his conduct to Miss Niphet with something more than curiosity.
 
Amongst the winter evenings' amusements were two forms of quadrille: the old-fashioned game of cards, and the more recently fashionable dance. On these occasions it was of course a carpet-dance. Now, dancing had never been in Mr. Falconer's line, and though modern dancing, especially in quadrilles, is little more than walking, still in that 'little more' there is ample room for grace and elegance⁴ of motion.
 
Herein Lord Curryfin outshone all the other young men in the circle. He endeavoured to be as indiscriminating as possible in inviting⁵ partners: but it was plain to curious observation, especially if a spice of jealousy⁶ mingled⁷ with the curiosity, that his favourite partner was Miss Niphet. When they occasionally danced a polka, the reverend doctor's mythological⁸ theory came out in full force. It seemed as if Nature had preordained that they should be inseparable, and the interior conviction of both, that so it ought to be, gave them an accordance of movement that seemed to emanate⁹ from the innermost mind. Sometimes, too, they danced the Minuet de la Cour.
 
Having once done it, they had been often unanimously requested to repeat it. In this they had no competitors. Miss Gryll confined herself to quadrilles, and Mr. Falconer did not even propose to walk through one with her. When dancing brought into Miss Niphet's cheeks the blush-rose bloom, which had more than once before so charmed Lord Curryfin, it required little penetration¹⁰ to see, through his external decorum, the passionate¹¹ admiration¹² with which he regarded her. Mr. Falconer remarked it, and, looking round to Miss Gryll, thought he saw the trace of a tear in her eye. It was a questionable¹³ glistening¹⁴: jealousy construed¹⁵ it into a tear. But why should it be there? Was her mind turning to Lord Curryfin? and the more readily because of a newly-perceived obstacle? Had mortified¹⁶ vanity any share in it? No: this was beneath Morgana. Then why was it there? Was it anything like regret that, in respect of the young lord, she too had lost her opportunity? Was he himself blameless in the matter? He had been on the point of declaration, and she had been apparently¹⁷ on the point of acceptance: and instead of following up his advantage, he had been absent longer than usual. This was ill; but in the midst of the contending forces which severally acted on him, how could he make it well? So he sate¹⁸ still, tormenting¹⁹ himself.
 
In the meantime, Mr. Gryll had got up at a card-table, in the outer, which was the smaller drawing-room, a quadrille party of his own, consisting of himself, Miss Ilex, the Reverend Dr. Opimian, and Mr. MacBorrowdale.
 
Mr. Gryll. This is the only game of cards that ever pleased me. Once it was the great evening charm of the whole nation. Now, when cards are played at all, it has given place to whist, which, in my younger days, was considered a dry, solemn, studious game, played in moody²⁰ silence, only interrupted by an occasional outbreak of dogmatism and ill-humour. Quadrille is not so absorbing but that we may talk and laugh over it, and yet is quite as interesting as anything of the kind has need to be.
 
Miss Ilex. I delight in quadrille. I am old enough to remember when, in mixed society in the country, it was played every evening by some of the party. But Chaque âge a ses plaisirs, son esprit, et ses mours.{1} It is one of the evils of growing old that we do not easily habituate ourselves to changes of custom. The old, who sit still while the young dance and sing, may be permitted to regret the once always accessible cards, which, in their own young days, delighted the old of that generation: and not the old only.
 
The Rev³. Dr. Opimian. There are many causes for the diminished attraction of cards in evening society. Late dinners leave little evening. The old time for cards was the interval²¹ between tea and supper. Now there is no such interval, except here and there in out-of-the-way places, where, perhaps, quadrille and supper may still flourish, as in the days of Queen Anne. Nothing was more common in country towns and villages, half-a-century ago, than parties meeting in succession at each other's houses for tea, supper, and quadrille. How popular this game had been, you may judge from Gay's ballad²³, which represents all classes as absorbed in quadrille.{2} Then the facility of locomotion²⁴ dissipates, annihilates²⁵ neighbourhood.
 
          1 Boileau.
 
          2 For example:
 
          When patients lie in piteous case,
          In comes the apothecary²⁶,
          And to the doctor cries 'Alas²⁷!
 
          Non debes Quadrilare.'
          The patient dies without a pill:
          For why? The doctor's at quadrille.
 
          Should France and Spain again grow loud,
          The Muscovite grow louder,
          Britain, to curb²⁸ her neighbours proud,
 
          Would want both ball and powder;
          Must want both sword and gun to kill;
          For why? The general's at quadrille.
People are not now the fixtures³⁰ they used to be in their respective localities, finding their amusements within their own limited circle. Half the inhabitants of a country place are here to-day and gone to-morrow. Even of those who are more what they call settled, the greater portion is less, probably, at home than whisking about the world. Then, again, where cards are played at all, whist is more consentaneous to modern solemnity: there is more wiseacre-ism about it: in the same manner that this other sort of quadrille, in which people walk to and from one another with faces of exemplary gravity, has taken the place of the old-fashioned country-dance. 'The merry dance, I dearly love' would never suggest the idea of a quadrille, any more than 'merry England' would call up any image not drawn³¹ from ancient ballads³² and the old English drama.
 
Mr. Gryll. Well, doctor, I intend to have a ball at Christmas, in which all modes of dancing shall have fair play, but country-dances shall have their full share.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. I rejoice in the prospect³³. I shall be glad to see the young dancing as if they were young.
 
Miss Ilex. The variety of the game called tredrille—the Ombre of Pope's Rape³⁴ of the Lock—is a pleasant game for three. Pope had many opportunities of seeing it played, yet he has not described it correctly; and I do not know that this has been observed.
 
The Rev. Dr. Opimian. Indeed, I never observed it. I shall be glad to know how it is so.
 
Miss Ilex. Quadrille is played with forty cards: tredrille usually with thirty: sometimes, as in Pope's Ombre, with twenty-seven. In forty cards, the number of trumps³⁵ is eleven in the black suits, twelve in the red:{1} in thirty, nine in all suits alike.{2} In twenty-seven, they cannot be more than nine in one suit, and eight in the other three. In Pope's Ombre spades are trumps, and the number is eleven: the number which they wou............