"Nonsense, George," said his wife. "You are vexing, and very ridiculous. Why tease the girl? We have all made mistakes of that kind in our day, Betsey, my dear. You should have seen Mr. Selby himself, when he was a young man, and wanted to look his best. He could hardly walk--he hobbled--from the tightness of his boots."
"You are mean, Mary, to go back to that. If I did, it was only when I hoped to walk or dance with you."
"And you would have danced far better if your shoes had been a larger size. But truly, Betsey, if you will try the effect of a wet sponge on your face, you will find your own nice natural colour infinitely more becoming."
"I am afraid it will make me awful pale. I'd hate to look pale alongside Muriel, her colour brightens so when she gets animated. And there's Tilly Martindale; perhaps she'll be there, and I guess she's sure to have a colour, however she comes by it."
"They are not in the Church," said Mrs. Bunce, grandly.
"Nor am I, auntie. It's a party I'm going to." Public opinion, however, so freely expressed, had its effect, and Betsey returned to her room, to reappear more like her ordinary self, and accept with little satisfaction the congratulations and praises which good-hearted Mrs. Selby felt bound to shower upon her.
As the aunt and niece drew near their destination they felt their hack suddenly slow off into a walk. There was a sleigh in front of them, and when Betsey stood up, craning her short neck to reconnoitre, there was another in front of that, and another, and another. Then there were gates and an illuminated mansion beyond, up to which the line of sleighs was streaming, slowly and intermittently, as each in succession stopped to set down its load, and then vanished.
"I declare, auntie, we're in a procession! Ain't it cunning? and quite grand. The company will all arrive together, and there's no doubt they will make a grand entry, two and two with the music playing a march--just like there was in Tullover's Circus, last year, at St. Euphrase. Only we'll have to walk, on account of the stairs, and not having horses. I always knew it was the stage and the pulpit gave the law about speaking, but I didn't know before, it was the circus set the fashion for other things. Ain't it well, now, that I was there?--though you scarcely thought so at the time. You just keep as near me as you can, and I'll tell you what to do--all I know. But, to be sure, they'll be providin' us with beaux, and we'll have to go wherever the gentlemen take us. Ah! When I remember the lady in the yellow satin riding habit, with the knight in steel button armour and the peacock plume! It was something beyond. I don't see why steel button armour should not go quite as well with geranium poplin as yellow satin. But knights, if there are any, won't wear their uniform at a private party, I'm afraid. The Queen makes them keep it for wearing at the palace, most likely; but it's mean of her, all the same. However, black swallow-tails look real nice, with almost any colour a girl can put on, and it's just the very thing to tone down my geranium colour, and make it look moderate."
There was no place for Mrs. Bunce to slip in a word as her niece ran on in a continuous monologue--soliloquy--rather, for she was merely thinking aloud, and her thoughts had grown so engrossing that she probably would not have heard, had she been spoken to. Presently the sleigh came to a final halt, and it was their own turn to alight and follow the stream of cloaked figures up the stairs. A counter-stream of those who had disentangled themselves, like moths escaped from the dusky chrysalids, and were rustling their airy glories into form, passed them on the banister side, while the arrivals not yet perfected in the cloak-room slunk upwards by the wall.
Betsey's breath seemed to forsake her in one little gasp of ecstasy. She followed her aunt upwards mechanically. Her consciousness had gathered itself into her eyes, and sat there all athirst, drinking in impressions from the novel scene. The scent of flowers was everywhere, and the sound of sackbut, psaltery, fiddle, and all that she could dream of festive music. Through the open doors below, as she ascended, appeared dancing figures, whirling and vanishing in endless succession. Lamps and glitter seemed everywhere, and gowns of every hue--a moving rainbow. She could only liken it to the description from a New York pantomime in that morning's newspaper of the "Halls of Dazzling Light." The hall-way, which she looked down on as she went up, was filled with people in evening dress, circulating to and fro, and a stream of people in festive array was passing her on the stairs--velvets, satins, jewellery, lace and flowers, not to speak of niceties in hair-dressing and general arrangement, which it had not hitherto entered into her mind to conceive, but were still so beautiful. She caught them all in the passage of her eye across that serried stream as she went up a flight of stairs. She was a born milliner, as the upper Canadiennie not very seldom is.