But the sisters showed no signs of yielding.
"I tell you what it is, girls," said their father in anger, "you're a pair of ungrateful minxes. Don't 'pa' me," he added at the duet of deprecation that followed. "My daughters are going to dance with a lord," he continued with tragic fervour, "and their poor old father isn't good enough for them."
Mr. Sleek did not go to business that morning. A terrible ceremony that lasted a good hour and a half was gone through. Mr. Sleek's list, which had originally contained over a hundred names, was shorn of its fair proportions, till but a little handful of the least objectionable remained. With the eloquence of a Cicero and the skill of an attorney-general, Miss Sleek "showed cause" against everybody. Though he fought hard he had to yield, for the girls were two to one. But he did not give in without a struggle, and he fought loyally for the absent Dabbler, but the girls were inexorable.
"Mr. Dabbler is too dreadful, papa. I'm sure he'd forget himself, and he would insist on dancing."
Now both the Misses Sleek had a vivid recollection of poor Dabbler's terpsichorean efforts at a certain Guildhall ball. Not contented with walking through his square dances, as is the lazy custom now-a-days, Mr. Dabbler had danced them with a vigour and ingenuity which would have assuredly brought down the house at a transpontine theatre. Even at the Guildhall, Dabbler's style was peculiar to himself, and productive of amazement and delight to all but his partners and those who figured in the same set. Dabbler was a vigorous dancer. When he set to his partner, he performed a sort of cellar-flap breakdown; when he stood in the middle of the quadrille while his vis-à-vis advanced and retired with the two ladies, he still continued dancing. "To dance implies that a man is glad," and Dabbler was a cheerful-minded fellow enough, but no lady danced with him a second time. The eyes of the Misses Sleek flashed with unaffected rage and horror at the terrible remembrance of that dreadful night in the City.
There was nothing for it but to yield, and Mr. Sleek, when he had had time to cool, came to the conclusion that perhaps after all his daughters were right.
Romping among the haycocks may be very good fun, but the elaborate toilettes in which he found his daughters arrayed on the eventful afternoon effectually convinced him that the romping, if romping there was to be, would be entirely confined to the few juveniles who graced the entertainment with their presence.
The house was turned inside out. The drawing-room floor had been duly chalked in elaborate devices; the staff at The Park, in new gowns, caps and aprons, was reinforced by an army of myrmidons from the City. Huge blocks of ice decorated the dining-room, and Messrs. Toot and Kinney's band already discoursed sweet music from the Italian summer-house. The plump charms of his two daughters were freely displayed in elaborate Parisian costumes, merveilleuse dresses of striped satin; one girl affected pink, the other sky blue. So resplendent was their appearance that the proud father hardly recognized his two buxom daughters in their gay attire.
But carriages, dog-carts and antediluvian flys began to pour into The Park. Every lady on her arrival received a bouquet of hot-house flowers, every gentleman was presented with an elaborate button-hole of orchids. Not a single invitation had been refused. King's Warren and the region round about had come to the philosophical conclusion that if Mr. Sleek, of The Park, was good enough for Squire Warrender, he was good enough for them. More than this, even those who had once passed the Sleek girls with a condescending nod, or with their noses high in air, had deigned to intrigue for invitations; and in the hour of their triumph the girls had not been ill-natured, nobody had been refused.
There was quite a crowd in the shady corner of the hay-field to watch the so-called haymaking, a familiar sight enough to the King's Warreners, and there was romping among the haycocks. But the pastoral amusement was only indulged in by the children of the village school. Young Mr. Wurzel, in the shiniest of boots, yellow gloves, a pink tie and a white hat, his bride-elect, Miss Grains, upon his arm, looked on approvingly, and it is not to be wondered at if the young fellow's eye dwelt, somewhat too long for Miss Grains' satisfaction, upon their young hostesses. The Reverend John Dodd, as usual, was surrounded by a throng of female worshippers, the party from The Warren was in full force, and it somewhat astonished the Misses Sleek to note that Georgie and her cousin were in ordinary afternoon muslin dresses. No doubt the Sleek family would have been more gratified if, instead of his brown billycock, Lord Spunyarn had worn his coronet; he probably didn't travel with it, however.