On the night of the ball, Emma and Elizabeth were received with every attention by Lord Osborne, who met them in the hall; and Lady Osborne both curtsied and held out her hand; but Miss Osborne contented herself with a very short curtsey; while Miss Carr found herself obliged to become so engrossed in Colonel Beresford that she could not see them at all.
Lord Osborne was to open the ball with the Countess of X——, but he engaged Emma for the next two dances; and Mr. Howard secured her for the first two, and led her aside.
"This is just your second dance, is it not?"
"Oh, no! I have been out a year."
"Preposterous! A year's licence for breaking hearts in."
"Hearts so easily broken would be scarcely worth considering."
"Do not you, then, preserve them in a glass case?"
"I never preserve what I do not value."
"So young and so untender!"