“Why, Lilly Wallace, what do you mean!” screamed Sybil.
“Just this: that I am a trifle proud, and just vain enough not to care to look a guy wherever I go, and that I am pretty sure to look that at your house on the 22d. You will all be dressed to kill, as you say—rigged out in the very newest fashions by the most expensive dressmakers in Paris—and I shall have to appear like a school-girl in plain white muslin. I never wear anything else; mamma can’t afford it. I shall have a new one, and she will give me a handsome sash and fresh flowers; but that is all. She will appear herself in plain black velvet, without either old point or diamonds. If you think we will make too hideous a blot on your splendor, say so honestly, and we will spare you the disgrace.”
“Lilly, you are the very oddest girl I ever came across in the whole course of my life!” protested Sybil. “Why, how can you talk so? You will look perfectly lovely in your sheer white muslin. I only wish we Americans were not such fools as to spend all our money on our backs as we do; I can tell you most of us hate it and think it awfully hard to have to do it. But we can’t help it; we should get so laughed at if we went to a ball in white muslin that we should die of shame.”
“Well, that’s a pleasant lookout for me!” I remarked.
“Oh! it’s quite a different thing with you,” Sybil declared, and with a warmth I felt was sincere; indeed, I felt she was sincere all through. “You are English, and we know perfectly well you have a different standard in those things.”
“And my mother?” I said. “What sort of effect is she likely to produce in her plain black velvet?”
“She will look like a queen—that’s all; you know she will, Lilly.”
I did know it; I had known it as long as I could remember. I had been brought up by my mother in a black velvet dress, and believed, nay, knew, that she looked as beautiful and queenlike in it as if its soft and sombre simplicity had been embroidered in gems and beflowered by all the Worths in Christendom.
I confess, nevertheless—and I do so with shame—that I felt mortified at her having to present herself in this splendid gathering of Transatlantic rank and fashion in the attire which had borne her triumphantly through many a stately Parisian crowd. I was really dazzled by the splendor of the dresses when we stood in the midst of them. There was no distinguishing the young from the old, the maid from the matron; silks, satins, laces, jewels glistened indiscriminately on all. There was a great deal of beauty amongst the women—there is sure to be in an American assembly; but the richness of their dresses surpassed anything I ever beheld. In a French salon you may expect to meet a great deal of elegance—some dresses that stand out from the common level of taste and becomingness by their more brilliant hues and elaborate trimmings; but here all were brilliant, all were elaborate, all were magnificent. I really did feel an anachronism as I stood there in my innocent, fluttering muslin, while these superb, many-colored birds-of-paradise floated and rustled all round me, sweeping the dark carpet with miles of silk, and satin, and velvet, and lace of every hue in the rainbow. It was like being shut up in a kaleidoscope; the pattern shifted, flashing into new forms before my eyes at every turn, until I felt fairly bewildered by the moving glory. What kind of conversation could go on under external conditions like these? How were people, women at any rate, to collect their thoughts to converse on any possible subject except the one that was under their eyes, brought before them in such victorious, fascinating guise? If they were not talking of dress, their own dress, their friend’s dress, dress in general or in particular, they were most assuredly thinking of it. And small blame to them. I know I, for one, could think of nothing else.
Nothing could exceed the courtesy of our hosts. They led up guest after guest to introduce to us; all the magnates were presented to my mother, all the young ladies to me. They were very gracious, every one of them, but we did not get on well after the first exchange of commonplaces. How could we? What interest could a white-muslin creature like poor me have in the eyes of these sumptuously-attired young ladies? I said simply nothing to them, I suggested nothing; I was a blank. Sybil never sat down for a moment. She was untiring in her efforts to make everybody happy and pleasant and at home. She kept flitting about from room to room, bringing young gentlemen up to young ladies, seeing that no one was overlooked, that congenial elements were drawn together, that antagonistic ones were kept asunder. There probably were some antagonistic ones, though they were invisible beneath the gay, harmonious surface—that pale, stately-looking girl, for instance, whom I had noticed sitting apart beside a large console that separated her from the gaudy group standing close by. I knew she was a great friend of Sybil’s, because I had seen her photograph in a dainty gilt frame in the place of honor on her writing-table. I saw Sybil making a dart to her side every now and then, and interchanging a few hurried words in a tone of close confidence; and yet she took no pains to bring her forward or to introduce people to her. There was something peculiar about the girl’s air and countenance that drew my attention and made me wish to speak to her. I seized the first opportunity to whisper this wish to Sybil.