At once interrupting him, she exclaimed: "It is probably the last time
we shall have the pleasure of meeting our friends of Elvas, so I at
least have come to devote myself exclusively to them. Do, Colonel
L'Isle, take pity on a dumb woman, and lend me a Portuguese tongue."
And gliding off among a party of the natives present, she entered into
conversation with them, calling continually on L'Isle to interlard her
complimentary scraps with more copious and better turned periods.
Mrs. Shortridge, too, kept her interpreter, the commissary, close at
her elbow, and the quantity of uncurrent Portuguese she made him utter
to her guests, in the course of the night, amounted to a wholesale
issue of the counterfeit coin of that tongue. From the assiduity of
both ladies in courting the natives, one might have thought that they
meant to settle at Elvas, or that they were rival candidates
canvassing the borough for votes.
It was a young and gay party assembled here, and Mrs. Shortridge's
floor was soon covered with dancers. In private houses the national
dances are often executed in a modified and less demonstrative style,
at least early in the evening, than elsewhere.
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