“I agree with you. So, if you will let me have the last word and say that you really were the beauty of our ball, I will consent to drop the subject. And now for the other one! So you would like to go to the Seymours?”
“Yes, very much, for I enjoy parties. I do not think I should like to go to one every day or even every week; but once or twice a month I really should enjoy them.”
“What a moderate little belle! Well, and now comes the next important question. What are we to wear? Unluckily we cannot order the carriage and drive down the street to the most fashionable modistes and inspect the newest styles of dress goods and head-dresses and all that, as if we were in the city. We are in the country, and must make our toilet from what we have got in the house. Heigh ho! it is a great bore, being so far away from shops.”
“But, oh, Anna, we have got so much in the house. Think of your magnificent trousseau, with scarcely one of your many dresses touched yet.”
“That is all very well. But you know they were made and trimmed between two and six months ago; and every week something new in the way of trimmings and head-dresses comes up in town. However, we must do the best we can. It is a country ball and all the guests will be in the same case, that is one comfort.”
“Not one of them will be so well off as you are with your trousseau.”
“That is true, and that is another comfort, a very selfish one however. Well, let me see, I think I will wear my light blue taffeta, with a white illusion over it, looped up with bluebells and lilies of the valley, with a wreath of the same. How will that do?”
“It will be very pretty and tasteful.”
“And you, my darling? What have you to wear? You know my dresses fit you, and my wardrobe is quite at your service.”
“Thanks, dear Anna; but I have a great plenty of dresses that have never been worn, and of dress goods that have never been made up. In the first weeks of our married life my dear Alick bought every rich and pretty thing he could lay his hands on for me.”