Wives and Daughters: An Every-Day Story - Page 234/572

At the present time there are few people at a public ball besides the

dancers and their chaperones, or relations in some degree interested

in them. But in the days when Molly and Cynthia were young--before

railroads were, and before their consequences, the excursion-trains,

which take every one up to London now-a-days, there to see their fill

of gay crowds and fine dresses--to go to an annual charity-ball, even

though all thought of dancing had passed by years ago, and without

any of the responsibilities of a chaperone, was a very allowable

and favourite piece of dissipation to all the kindly old maids who

thronged the country towns of England. They aired their old lace and

their best dresses; they saw the aristocratic magnates of the country

side; they gossipped with their coevals, and speculated on the

romances of the young around them in a curious yet friendly spirit.

The Miss Brownings would have thought themselves sadly defrauded

of the gayest event of the year, if anything had prevented their

attending the charity ball, and Miss Browning would have been

indignant, Miss Phoebe aggrieved, had they not been asked to

Ashcombe and Coreham, by friends at each place, who had, like them,

gone through the dancing-stage of life some five-and-twenty years

before, but who liked still to haunt the scenes of their former

enjoyment, and see a younger generation dance on "regardless of their

doom." They had come in one of the two sedan-chairs that yet lingered

in use at Hollingford; such a night as this brought a regular harvest

of gains to the two old men who, in what was called the "town's

livery," trotted backwards and forwards with their many loads of

ladies and finery. There were some postchaises, and some "flys," but

after mature deliberation Miss Browning had decided to keep to the

more comfortable custom of the sedan-chair; "which," as she said to

Miss Piper, one of her visitors, "came into the parlour, and got full

of the warm air, and nipped you up, and carried you tight and cosy

into another warm room, where you could walk out without having to

show your legs by going up steps, or down steps." Of course only one

could go at a time; but here again a little of Miss Browning's good

management arranged everything so very nicely, as Miss Hornblower

(their other visitor) remarked. She went first, and remained in the

warm cloak-room until her hostess followed; and then the two ladies

went arm-in-arm into the ball-room, finding out convenient seats

whence they could watch the arrivals and speak to their passing

friends, until Miss Phoebe and Miss Piper entered, and came to take

possession of the seats reserved for them by Miss Browning's care.

These two younger ladies came in, also arm-in-arm, but with a certain

timid flurry in look and movement very different from the composed

dignity of their seniors (by two or three years). When all four

were once more assembled together, they took breath, and began to

converse.