“Rosalba Pearson’s,” replied the lady interrogated.
“Oh!” returned Mrs. Hamilton, in a tone that said as plainly as words could have spoken it, “she is welcome to all such parties.”
“Did you ever spend a more delightful evening than we had at Rosalba’s?” asked the occupant of the desk immediately behind Matilda’s, to the companion who shared it with her, the morning but one after the conversation we have recorded.
“No, never. Everything went off so pleasantly! I never saw a party better conducted. And yet it was very large.”
“No doubt,” thought Matilda, as she commented in her own mind upon what she heard; “for amongst the set that was likely to be there, a party is too great an event, for them not to flock to it.”
“Didn’t Charles Lisle and Rosalba dance the polka beautifully together?” resumed the first speaker.
“Charles Lisle!” thought Matilda, “is it possible he could condescend to go there! But I suppose Rosalba’s brother goes to the same school. Besides, it is not of so much consequence for a boy to form such acquaintances. Men can associate with whom they please, without compromising their dignity, Ma says.”
Again her ears were arrested, for the one who had been first addressed, said in reply; “I don’t think Henrietta Lisle danced so well as Rosalba did, though she certainly had a splendid partner. Did you ever see a handsomer boy than Edd Wharton? And didn’t his sister look lovely too?”
Matilda was thunder-struck! Henrietta Lisle at a party given by Rosalba Pearson! a storekeeper’s daughter! And Edd Wharton, too, her paragon of all that was genteel and elegant, both as regarded person, fortune, and family, and his beautiful sister, to be there!
She was sur-prised and shocked beyond measure. “But Ma says, people have latterly got some very strange notions into their heads about equality,” thought she; and at this moment, to her no small relief, she heard her class called up; for all that had been said of this party was gall and bitterness to her.