“What do we want with the old things here?” she said; “they would much rather be in bed, and the best place for them. I don’t suppose you mean to do anything wrong, any of you girls, and if you did they wouldn’t stop you. If you can’t take care of yourselves, if you want a chaperon, there’s me. And there’s Fanny Willoughby, and Lilian Melville, and Maud Seton; they’ve all been married as long as I have. Where could you find steadier married women? and ain’t we enough to chaperon a couple of dozen girls? I never pretend to ask old people, unless it was just to let them see how everything looks, poor old things, once in a way.”
This being the creed of the mistress of the feast, it is not to be supposed that her disciples were more catholic. And there was no limit to the fun which the young people promised themselves. To do them justice, it was very innocent fun. The greatest sin on the conscience of the wildest romp in the place was that of having danced ten times with a favourite partner, besides sitting out all the square dances (of which there were only two) in his company. Algernon himself had insisted upon two. He said it was respectable: and he danced both with the least popular of the young ladies, that they might not feel themselves slighted, for he was a very good fellow.
“Did you ever see such a muff?” his wife said, who never condescended to the Lancers. “I do believe he likes to hop about with the ugliest thing he can pick up. I thought I had kept out all the ugly girls, but I haven’t succeeded. If there is one, Algy is sure to find her out.”
“To show you that you have no need to be jealous,” someone said.
“Oh, jealous!” cried Ellen, with supreme disdain.
The young Merridews, brothers and sisters, thought her the most wonderful creature that had ever been born. Her light hair was in curls and frizzes (newly come in and extremely captivating) all over her head. Her dress was a sort of purple, a colour nobody but herself ventured to wear, but which threw up her fairness with the most brilliant effect. She had all her jewellery on, from the diamonds Harry had spent all his available money (under her own directions) in buying for her, to the little bracelet contributed by the clerks at the bank. Her arm was covered nearly up to the elbow, and the sound she made when they fell over her hands and she had to push them back again was wonderful. It was like a whole concert of fairy music, the bangles representing the higher notes, the big golden manacles furnishing a bass. She liked to hold up her hands and shake them back with a pretty cry of “Tiresome! Why is one forced to wear all this upon one?” Ellen said.
And Mrs. John had accomplished her wish. She had got, if not three, at least two new dresses for Hester, one upon her shoulders at this moment, the other, the blue one, laid up all ready in the box. White of course was the first. It had the silk slip upon which Mrs. John had set her heart, which was so much more thrifty than anything else, which could be covered over again and again, as she pointed out to her daughter, and which at the present moment was veiled in floods and billows of tarlatan. Tarlatan was the fashion of those days: anything that was limp, that took—as people now love to say, “nice folds,” being considered utterly dowdy. And when Hester appeared in those crisp puffings, with her pearls round her throat, and white flowers in the hair which her mother called auburn, even young Mrs. Merridew herself held her breath. She turned her cousin round and round to examine her.
“Well, I call that a beautiful dress,” she said. “Who put it into your head to get a dress like that? Why, it is the height of the fashion! Those bouillonées are just the right thing to wear. And do you mean to say these are real pearls? Oh, go away, or I shall kill you! Why have I not pearls? They are far more distingués—oh, far more!—than my paltry bits of diamonds. Oh, take her away, or I shall not be able to keep my hands off her. And such flowers! they must have come from Forster’s. I am certain they came from Forster’s. Mine are French, but they are not so pretty,” Ellen said.
Hester stood and smiled while these comments were made, though with a half sense of shame. She thought it annoyed her very much to be subjected to such a survey, and so no doubt it would have done had not the result been so satisfactory; but it is hard to be really displeased by approbation.
As for Ellen, she whispered behind her hand to Harry, “The old lady must have a great deal more than we think for. She must have been saving up. You don’t get a dress like that for nothing.”
“It’s not the dress—she always looks nice, whatever she puts on,” said faithful Harry.
His sister contemplated him with eyes full of contempt. “What is the use of talking to such a
