What nonsense! Bravo! thou wert in the right of it, jolly miller of Dee!
“I care for nobody, no, not I;
And nobody cares for me.”
So, let me lock up my desk, and dress for the ball.
Really, not a bad ball; even now—when looked at in the light of next day's quiet—with the leaves stirring lazily in the fir-tree by my window, and the broad sunshine brightening the moorlands far away.
Not a bad ball, even to me, who usually am stoically contemptuous of such senseless amusements. Doubtless, from the mean motive that I like dancing, and am rarely asked to dance; that I am just five-and-twenty, and get no more attention than if I were five-and-forty. Of course, I protest continually that I don't care a pin for this fact (mem. mean again). For I do care—at the very bottom of my heart, I do. Many a time have I leaned my head here—good old desk, you will tell no tales!—and cried, actually cried—with the pain of being neither pretty, agreeable, nor young.
Moralists say, it is in every woman's power to be, in measure, all three: that when she is not liked or admired—by some few at least—it is a sign that she is neither likeable nor admirable. Therefore, I suppose I am neither. Probably very disagreeable. Penelope often says so, in her sharp, and Lisabel in her lazy way. Lis would apply the same expression to a gnat on her wrist, or a dagger pointed at her heart. A “thoroughly amiable woman!” Now I never was—never shall be—an amiable woman.
To return to the ball—and really I would not mind returning to it and having it all over again, which is more than one can say of many hours in our lives, especially of those which roll on, rapidly as hours seem to roll, after five-and-twenty. It was exceedingly amusing. Large, well-lit rooms, filled with well-dressed people; we do not often make such a goodly show in our country entertainments; but then the Grantons know everybody, and invite everybody. Nobody could do that but dear old Mrs. Granton, and “my Colin,” who, if he has not three pennyworth of brains, has the kindest heart and the heaviest purse in the whole neighbourhood.
I am sure Mrs. Granton must have felt proud of her handsome suite of rooms, quite a perambulatory parterre, boasting all the hues of the rainbow, subdued by the proper complement of inevitable black. By and by, as the evening advanced, dot after dot of the adored scarlet made its appearance round the doors, and circulating gradually round the room, completed the coloring of the scene.