PHOEBE (shuddering). No, we dare not, I cannot go.
VALENTINE. Indeed, ma'am.
PHOEBE. 'Tis impossible.
(She really means it, and had not the music here taken an unfair advantage of her it is certain that MISS PHOEBE would never have gone to the ball. In after years she and MISS SUSAN would have talked together of the monstrous evening when she nearly lost her head, but regained it before it could fall off. But suddenly the music swells so alluringly that it is a thousand fingers beckoning her to all the balls she has missed, and in a transport she whirls MISS SUSAN from the blue and white room to the bed-chamber where is the bombazine. VALENTINE awaits their return like a conqueror, until MISS LIVVY'S words about his hair return to trouble him. He is stooping, gazing intently into a small mirror, extracting the grey hairs one by one, when PATTY ushers in the sisters WILLOUGHBY and MISS HENRIETTA. MISS HENRIETTA is wearing the new veil, which opens or closes like curtains when she pulls a string. She opens it now to see what he is doing, and the slight sound brings him to his feet.)
MISS HENRIETTA. 'Tis but the new veil, sir; there is no cause for alarm.
(They have already learned from PATTY, we may be sure, that he is in the house, but they express genteel surprise.)
MISS FANNY. Mary, surely we are addressing the gallant Captain Brown!
VALENTINE. It is the Misses Willoughby and Miss Henrietta. 'Tis indeed a gratification to renew acquaintance with such elegant and respectable females.
(The greetings are elaborate.)
MISS WILLOUGHBY. You have seen Miss Phoebe, sir?