ballroom

But now a richly dressed girl stepped out of the ballroom, inquired into the trouble, and said she could fix it in a moment.

With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss and ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not looking at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders, back, and bosom- which in the fashion of those days were very much exposed- and she seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her as she moved toward Anna Pavlovna.

That mist which covers everything in that blissful time when childhood is just ending, and out of that vast circle, happy and gay, there is a path growing narrower and narrower, and it is delightful and alarming to enter the ballroom, bright and splendid as it is....

Their first pause was at the Crown Inn, an inconsiderable house, though the principal one of the sort, where a couple of pair of posthorses were kept, more for the convenience of the neighbourhood than from any run on the road; and his companions had not expected to be detained by any interest excited there; but in passing it they gave the history of the large room visibly added; it had been built many years ago for a ballroom, and while the neighbourhood had been in a particularly populous, dancing state, had been occasionally used as such;but such brilliant days had long passed away, and now the highest purpose for which it was ever wanted was to accommodate a whist club established among the gentlemen and halfgentlemen of the place.