What is she considering? Whether it is fitting thus, in this barefaced manner, to call the attention of society to a young girl's beauty. Evidently Goswyn does not think it right; but Goswyn is a prig. The Countess's delicacy gives way and troubles her no further. Another consideration occupies her: will her grand-daughter hold her own in comparison with the acknowledged beauties who are to share with her the honours of the evening? Her gaze rests upon Erika. "That crackbrained Elise is right. Erika hold her own beside them! the others cannot compare with her."
"What do you say, child?" she asked, approaching the girl. "Would you like to do it?"
"Yes," Erika confesses, frankly.
"It would not be quite undesirable," says her grandmother, whose mind is entirely made up. "You cannot go out much this year, and it would be something to appear once to excite attention and then to retire to the background for the rest of the season. Curiosity would be aroused, and would prepare a fine triumph for you next year."
The following morning Countess Brock received a note from Anna Lenzdorff containing a consent to her request.
About ten days afterwards Countess Erika Lenzdorff presented herself before a select public, chosen from the most exclusive society in Berlin, as "Heather Blossom," in a ragged petticoat, with her hair falling about her to her knees.
It was a strange soirée, that in which the youthful beauty made her first appearance in the world.
Countess Brock, the childless widow of a very wealthy man who had derived much of his social prestige from his wife, had inherited from the deceased the use during her lifetime of a magnificent mansion, together with an income the narrowness of which was in striking contrast with her residence.
The consequence whereof was much shabbiness amid brilliant surroundings.
The tableaux were given in a spacious ball-room, decorated with white and gold, at one end of which a small stage had been erected. The stage-decorations had been painted for nothing, by aspiring young artists. The curtain consisted of several worn old yellow damask portières sewed together, upon which the 'wicked fairy' herself had painted various fantastic flowers to conceal the threadbare spots.