"Ma foi, oui," says another. On we went, twirling and twisting, and
turning and whirling; couple after couple dropped panting off. Little
Klingenspohr himself was obliged to give in. All eyes were upon us--we
were going round ALONE. Dorothea was almost exhausted, when

* * * * *

I have been sitting for two hours since I marked the asterisks,
thinking--thinking. I have committed crimes in my life--who hasn't? But
talk of remorse, what remorse is there like THAT which rushes up in a
flood to my brain sometimes when I am alone, and causes me to blush when
I'm a-bed in the dark?

I fell, sir, on that infernal slippery floor. Down we came like shot; we
rolled over and over in the midst of the ballroom, the music going
ten miles an hour, 800 pairs of eyes fixed upon us, a cursed shriek of
laughter bursting out from all sides. Heavens! how clear I heard it, as
we went on rolling and rolling! "My child! my Dorothea!" shrieked out
Madame Speck, rushing forward, and as soon as she had breath to do
so, Dorothea of course screamed too; then she fainted, then she was
disentangled from out my spurs, and borne off by a bevy of tittering
women. "Clumsy brute!" said Madame Speck, turning her fat back upon me.
I remained upon my seant, wild, ghastly, looking about. It was all up
with me--I knew it was. I wished I could have died there, and I wish so
still.

Klingenspohr married her, that is the long and short; but before that
event I placed a sabre-cut across the young scoundrel's nose, which
destroyed HIS beauty for ever.