CHAPTER XIV.
A CHELTENHAM BALL.—AN INTRODUCTION.—A CONQUEST.
A great deal of profound meditation was bestowed by Mrs. Barnaby on the occurrences of that morning before the time arrived for the toilet, preparatory to the ball of the succeeding night. All these will shew themselves in their results as they arise; and for the present it will be only necessary to mention, that, in providing for this toilet, everything approaching to the sordid cares dictated by economy was banished. The time was too short to admit of her ordering a new dress for this occasion; though the powerful feeling at work within her caused a white satin, decorated in every possible way with the richest blonde, to be bespoken for the next. Every other article that Cheltenham could furnish, (and it being the height of the season, Paris itself could hardly do more for her,) every other species of expensive decoration, short of diamonds and pearls, was purchased for this important ball, at which something within her—speaking with the authority of an oracle—declared that she should become acquainted with Lord Mucklebury. Busy as were the afternoon and morning which intervened, she found time for the very necessary business of ordering her broker (he had been her father's broker too) to sell out five hundred pounds stock for her; and this done, and her letter safely deposited in the boarding-house letter-bag, she turned her thoughts towards Agnes.
She had certainly, to use her own language when reasoning the point with herself, the very greatest mind in the world not to take her to the ball at all. But this mind, great as it was, was not a settled mind, and was presently shaken by a sort of instinctive consciousness that there was in Agnes, independent of her beauty, a something that might help to give consequence to her entrée. "As to her dress," thought she, "I am perfectly determined that it shall be the same she wore at Clifton, ... not so much on account of the expense ... at the present moment it would be madness to permit such a consideration to have any effect; ... but because it gives her an air more distinguished, more remarkable than any one else; ... and besides ... who knows but that the contrast of style, beautiful as she is, may be favourable to me?... I have not forgotten our fellow-traveller from Silverton ... she seemed to freeze him. And let her freeze my adorable viscount too, so that I".... But here her thoughts came too rapidly to dress themselves in words, and for a few minutes her reverie was rather a tumult than a meditation.
"Yes, she shall go!" she exclaimed at last, rising from the sofa, and collecting a variety of precious parcels, the result of her shopping; "Yes, she shall go to the ball; and should any mischief be likely to follow, I will make her go out to service before the end of the week."
Having thus at last come to a determination, and upon reasonings which she felt were not likely to be shaken, she mounted to her sleeping apartment, and after indulging herself by spreading forth various articles of newly-purchased finery upon the bed, she turned to the corner in which Agnes, her tiny table, her books, and writing apparatus, were all packed away together in the smallest possible space, and said, "Come here, Agnes ... you must have done lessons enough for to-day, and I have great news for you. Where do you think I mean to take you to-night?"
Agnes cast her eyes upon the bed, and immediately anticipating some public display of which she was doomed to be a witness, replied in a tone that was anything but joyful,—
"I don't know, aunt."
"I don't know, aunt!" retorted Mrs. Barnaby indignantly, mimicking her tone. "What an owl of a girl you are, Agnes!... Oh! how unlike what I was at the same age.... You don't know?... I suppose you don't, indeed. There is not another woman under the sun besides myself who would do for a dependant, penniless girl, all I am doing for you. I sacrifice everything for you ... my feelings, my health, my money, and yet you look exactly as if I was going to take you to school again, instead of to a ball!"
Agnes sighed; she thought of her last ball, of all its pains and all its pleasures; and feeling but too sure that it was as impossible she should escape the former, as improbable that she should find the latter, she replied mournfully enough, "I would rather not go, if you please, aunt ... I do not like balls.'"