At the Ball (1815) [ Practices ]
… – What do you mean? Then changing from I do not want to know what you mean. Where is my father? When are we to begin dancing?” Emma could hardly understand him: he seemed in an odd humour. He walked off to find his father … and to feel that she had so many hours of unusual festivity before her. She was more disturbed by Mr. Knightley's not dancing, than by anything else. There he was, among the standers-by, where he ought not to be; he ought to be dancing, —not classing himself with the husbands, and fathers, and whist-players, who were pretending to feel an interest …
Fiction | Dance | Benevolence | Happiness
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