`` Who is this insolent young fellow ? '' inquired Captain Langford , who still remained beside Dr. Clarke . `` If he be in his senses , his impertinence demands the bastinado ; if mad , Lady Eleanore should be secured from further inconvenience by his confinement . '' `` His name is Jervase Helwyse , '' answered the doctor -- `` a youth of no birth or fortune , or other advantages save the mind and soul that nature gave him ; and , being secretary to our colonial agent in London , it was his misfortune to meet this Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe . He loved her , and her scorn has driven him mad . '' `` He was mad so to aspire , '' observed the English officer . `` It may be so , '' said Dr. Clarke , frowning as he spoke ; `` but I tell you , sir , I could wellnigh doubt the justice of the Heaven above us if no signal humiliation overtake this lady who now treads so haughtily into yonder mansion . She seeks to place herself above the sympathies of our common nature , which envelops all human souls ; see if that nature do not assert its claim over her in some mode that shall bring her level with the lowest . '' `` Never ! '' cried Captain Langford , indignantly -- `` neither in life nor when they lay her with her ancestors . '' Not many days afterward the governor gave a ball in honor of Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe . The principal gentry of the colony received invitations , which were distributed to their residences far and near by messengers on horseback bearing missives sealed with all the formality of official despatches . In obedience to the summons , there was a general gathering of rank , wealth and beauty , and the wide door of the province-house had seldom given admittance to more numerous and honorable guests than on the evening of Lady Eleanore 's ball . Without much extravagance of eulogy , the spectacle might even be termed splendid , for , according to the fashion of the times , the ladies shone in rich silks and satins outspread over wide-projecting hoops , and the gentlemen glittered in gold embroidery laid unsparingly upon the purple or scarlet or sky-blue velvet which was the material of their coats and waistcoats . The latter article of dress was of great importance , since it enveloped the wearer 's body nearly to the knees and was perhaps bedizened with the amount of his whole year 's income in golden flowers and foliage . The altered taste of the present day -- a taste symbolic of a deep change in the whole system of society -- would look upon almost any of those gorgeous figures as ridiculous , although that evening the guests sought their reflections in the pier-glasses and rejoiced to catch their own glitter amid the glittering crowd . What a pity that one of the stately mirrors has not preserved a picture of the scene which by the very traits that were so transitory might have taught us much that would be worth knowing and remembering ! Would , at least , that either painter or mirror could convey to us some faint idea of a garment already noticed in this legend -- the Lady Eleanore 's embroidered mantle , which the gossips whispered was invested with magic properties , so as to lend a new and untried grace to her figure each time that she put it on ! Idle fancy as it is , this mysterious mantle has thrown an awe around my image of her , partly from its fabled virtues and partly because it was the handiwork of a dying woman , and perchance owed the fantastic grace of its conception to the delirium of approaching death . After the ceremonial greetings had been paid , Lady Eleanore Rochcliffe stood apart from the mob of guests , insulating herself within a small and distinguished circle to whom she accorded a more cordial favor than to the general throng .
The waxen torches threw their radiance vividly over the scene , bringing out its brilliant points XXXXX strong relief , but she gazed carelessly , and with now and then an expression of weariness or scorn tempered with such feminine grace that her auditors scarcely perceived the moral deformity of which it was the utterance .
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