When the hour sounded, Laura had been dressed and finished to the last lace; had indeed been sitting quietly reading, awaiting the arrival of their carriage. But Linda could not contain her impatience. She walked up and down the sitting-room spreading out her dress occasionally, and requesting her mother to say if it was “straight,” whether her flowers were exactly in their places, whether it would not have been better for her to have worn another colour. This conversation was varied by wondering whether she would get any partners, or have to sit on a seat the whole evening; whether Mr. Hope would find them out, or be so occupied with his duties as steward that he would not observe them or have time to dance with them. To which inquiries her parents either were unable to reply satisfactorily or said she would see when she got there.
“Do you know, Laura,” she suddenly added, “impartially speaking, you are really a pretty girl! I am sure if I were a stranger I should think so; I should indeed. Your features are not perfection, except your eyes, I mean—I don’t think any one could say they were not first class. But you have a very taking look when you are interested about anything; and then you are tallish and slight—not too tall either. You could look dignified too, if you liked, which is a great advantage to a woman, while I am afraid I never could. If I were to set my mouth and knit my brows and say ‘Sir! I fail to understand you,’ people would only laugh and pat me on the back. It would never freeze the blood in their veins, or anything of that sort. Now ‘father, dearest father!’ as the Wanderer in the play says, don’t you think Laura looks perfectly splendid to-night?”
“Bless her heart!” said Mr. Stamford, answering the question while he gazed at his eldest daughter with fond admiration, “she looks like a—like a queen in a book, like a princess in the Arabian Nights; like her father’s own dear girl. I trust she will enjoy herself as much as she deserves; and you too, Linda, darling.”
Laura Stamford without doubt did look a most perfect incarnation of innocent, girlish beauty. And, indeed, when is a maiden more likely to present that appearance than on the night of the first ball of note and importance to which she has been bidden? Her cheek slightly flushed with the excitement of untasted pleasure, her eyes sparkling with innocent excitement; her red-rose lips; her rounded arms; her ivory neck; her slender, supple form; her free, elastic step—if these attributes do not, in combination, make up the wondrous, God-given, crowning gift of beauty, then have the grateful eyes of mankind never been gladdened with the vision.
“Father is perfectly just in his opinion of dear Laura’s appearance to-night,” said Mrs. Stamford, with a mother’s guarded approval; “and my little girl here, too, looks extremely nice. I might say more, were I not afraid of making her vain. I can only tell her not to be anxious about herself; to trust to the course of events, and all will go well. We must have a grand talk over it all to-morrow morning.”
“Here comes the carriage at last, I am thankful to say,” said Laura, as the grand London-made barouche rolled up to the door, while the footman rang the bell sufficiently long to make a nervous inmate conclude it to be a fire.
“Muffle up and run down, my dears! We must not keep three hundred guineas’ worth of horseflesh waiting at night,” said her father.
Mrs. Grandison and Josie were in the carriage. The former made room beside her for Mrs. Stamford, saying, “You girls must sit together on the back seat. It’s large enough to hold four of you now there’s no crinoline—at least, none to speak of. Perhaps Mr. Stamford won’t mind sitting on the box—once upon a time two people would have filled this carriage. How did you get on with your dresses, girls? Mine and Josie’s only came late in the afternoon, after that infamous Madame Rocheretti promising to have them fitted on and everything done in the way of trimmings yesterday. However, she threw herself on my mercy, as she said the Government House people had come down upon her at the last moment.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” said Josie. “However, I have made up my mind to have my dresses made at Justine’s in future. She is dearer, but she has twice as much originality. What have you got on, Laura?”
“Nothing very wonderful. We went to mother’s old dressmaker, Madame Schlesinger, that she used to have when she was first married. She is behind the times, I dare say, but a ball is a ball with Linda and me. We shall enjoy ourselves, I dare say. If we are much disfigured this time, we shall gradually advance to a knowledge of high millinery.”