"But it has spoiled your party," replied the other.
"Not at all," she answered, laughing, "what it has withdrawn in elegance, it has made up in spirit. The joke seems to take wonderfully."
But Emma did not like such "jokes." Mrs. Castleton's hauteur was of a more flexible kind. To spoil a match she was willing to spoil her party.
"Was I right?" she said to Tom, toward the close of the evening.
He nodded and laughed, and said, "I congratulate you."
Harry had in vain attempted to persuade Miss Dawson that she was heated and tired, and had better not polka; but the young lady thought him over-careful, and chose to dance.
"A willful thing!" muttered Harry, as he turned off. "Trifles show the temper—preserve me from an unamiable woman."
Now Miss Dawson was not unamiable, but Harry was cross. If he were ashamed of her, she was hardly to be expected to know that. At any rate he walked off and left her to take care of herself. Mr. Hardwicks took her home as he had brought her—and Harry hardly looked at her again.
He was thoroughly out of humor. Mrs. Castleton had discretion enough not to follow up her victory. She saw she was successful, and so left things to their own course.
Never was a "dissolving view" more perfect. Harry had really imagined Miss Dawson not only very beautiful, but thought she would grace any drawing-room in Europe. He now saw her hoydenish, flirty, and ungraceful, with beauty of a very unrefined style—in fact, a different person. Such is the power of contrast, and the effect of a "new light."