"Oh, certainly I should!" replied Mrs. Dorothea. "Well, Sarah, you may go, and mind you have all your eyes about you, and bring me a full account of every thing. And notice if there is any body there that I know—and how the people are dressed—and how often the refreshment trays come in—and whether they attempt a supper—and who begins the dancing. The Miss Salters will get partners for once in their lives, I suppose! And I dare say they will contrive to have a tolerably full room; for I hear they have been getting all their acquaintance to give away cards, right and left; Lady Matthias alone boasts that she has disposed of three dozen."
Sarah promised strict compliance with all the directions she had received, and disappeared in great haste, to pin new bows in her bonnet, and slip stiffeners into the large sleeves of her best silk dress; determining to complete her costume for the occasion, by lending herself her mistress's pea-green china crape shawl and black lace veil.
Mrs. Dorothea Arden, as soon as she was alone, sighed unconsciously; for visions of her early days presented themselves suddenly and unbidden, forming a violent contrast with the whole class of petty and degrading thoughts and interests, to which circumstances had gradually habituated, at least, if not reconciled her.
Ere she had quitted the pedestal of her youthful pride, beneath the shelter of her father's roof, with what appalling horror would she have thought of the chance-collected mob, about whose movements she was now capable of feeling an idle curiosity.
Vague recollections, too, passed with the quickness of a momentary glance, through her mind, of eligible establishments rejected with scorn, of comfort and respectability cast away, for dreams of ambition it had never been her fate to realize.
She paused, and some seconds were given to a remembrance apart from every other, which, though now but faintly seen amid the haze of distance, still seemed a little illumined speck, on which a sun-beam, piercing some aperture in a cloudy sky had chanced to fall.
But it was too late, quite too late for such thoughts, so she went out to pay some morning visits, to send in a veal cutlet for her dinner, and find out, more particularly, who were to be at the Salter's party.
CHAPTER IV.
Mr. Salter and his two daughters, the former equipped in a new wig, the latter in two new dresses, expressly for the occasion, were parading up and down the yet vacant public ballroom.