"I think I'll risk that," I answered, decidedly. "If Aunt Edith has no objection, I will avail myself of any invitations that I may receive for the next ten days. After that, Lent, you know, will decide the matter for us all."
"You must follow the dictates of your own judgment," returned my aunt, coldly. "Staying at home was your own choice, going out is at your own option."
"I know, dear aunt," I replied, with unaltered sang froid, "that you would do anything to indulge me in anything reasonable, and as I have quite set my heart upon this, I am sure you will not make any objection to it. You are the last person to put anything in the way of my pleasure and advantage."
"Pleasure and advantage are not always synonymous terms, my dear. What you might be pleased to consider pleasure, I might look upon as anything but advantageous, you know."
"Oh! we shall not differ as to that, I fancy. You cannot be more careful of me than of Josephine, and she has certainly tested pretty thoroughly the merits of the question. I should not think of going out as she does, to two or three parties of an evening, and spending the intervening hours of daylight in bed; but just three or four balls before the season closes, to see what it's all like, I really must enjoy, with your permission."
"Or without it," muttered Josephine. "You have enough aplomb to sustain you in that or any other impertinence you might undertake."
"Josephine," said her mother, sternly, "you forget yourself. My dear," to me, "you know I shall put no obstacle in the way of your enjoyment. You have my full permission to do as you think best."
"Thank you," I answered; "and I have the greatest desire to go to one of these mammoth charity balls. How lucky that it comes to-night, and that Mrs. Humphrey's is to-morrow, so that I can go to both."
"In what, if I may ask," said Grace, "do you propose appearing?"
"That's a question, I fancy, that has not occurred to our young friend," remarked Josephine.