“You’ll see when you go into the room how the other women are dressed,” said Josie authoritatively. “If you’re dowdy, it will make you so miserable that you’ll be more careful next time. I would have come down and given you a hint or two, but I make it a rule never to stir out on the day of a ball, and all yesterday I was too busy.”
“It is very kind of you,” said Laura, warmly, “and we were uncertain about several things, but it doesn’t matter particularly.”
“Laura must make up by freshness and youth what she wants in style,” said Mrs. Grandison good-humouredly. “I dare say she and Linda will do very well, though I really believe Josie’s will be the best dress in the room. And indeed it ought to be. Mr. Grandison’s cheque, and it was a large one, didn’t nearly pay for it.”
“Laura is only a year younger than I am, mamma,” said Josie, rather sharply. “One would think I was getting quite an old hag. I wonder if all the best men are going? Is that good looking Mr. Hope sure to be there?”
“Yes,” said Linda; “he told us he was one of the committee.”
Further conversation was rendered difficult by the dashing of the carriage into the “line.” The string of ball-ward carriages, of which they now formed a part, compelled them to proceed at a walk until the foremost vehicles drove up and deposited their occupants. The novelty of making a part of such an astonishing procession almost roused Linda’s spirits to the point of expressing the admiration of everything which she felt. But, recalling her mother’s advice and the responsibility of decorous demeanour now cast upon her, she refrained, at great personal cost and self-denial. She was rewarded in turn by the arrival of the carriage at the magic portal, from the interior of which a blaze of lamps and fairy splendour was visible.
A few moments saw them safely ushered into the dressing-room, provided with all accessories needful for repairing temporary damage or partial disarray. Small stay, however, was made here, and after Josie had gazed at herself in the mirrors from every conceivable point, and had herself adjusted by her obedient mother in several different modes, they bent their steps towards the main entrance to the ball-room, where they found Mr. Stamford awaiting them. By a curious coincidence, Mr. Barrington Hope chanced to come that way, when, giving his arm to Mrs. Stamford and Laura, he walked up to the top of the enormous room, leaving Mr. Stamford to bring up the rear with Mrs. Grandison and the two girls.
The latter lady lost no time in locating herself next to the wife of a well-known member of Parliament, and at no great distance from the wife and daughter of the Governor.
She signed to Mrs. Stamford to sit next to her, and being thus within the Vice-regal circle, as it were, considered the seating and rendezvous part of the business to be settled for the night.
Mr. Barrington Hope immediately possessed himself of Laura’s card, upon which he inscribed his name for two waltzes and said something about an extra as well. Josie was surrounded by several of the jeunesse dorée, who appropriated a large share of the dances not marked engaged. Of these there were several unnamed, and yet not open. When questioned, she declined to give the names of her partners, merely remarking that she reserved them for friends. As for Linda, she sat down in a state of wonder and admiration at the whole splendid array, to her astonished gaze supernal in glory and dazzling in brilliancy. The magnificent and lofty hall, the crowd of well-dressed men and women, the glass-like floor, the melodious crash of the band, which filled the room with the music of the spheres, as it seemed to her, the hall divided by a rope held by picturesque tars modelled upon the lines of the nautical melodrama; the swing and sway of the immortal dance-music of Johann Strauss—which had for some time commenced—the uniforms of the naval and military officers, all these wonders and splendours for a time obscured in her mind the fact that nobody had as yet asked her to dance.