"It's a great pity that their being in mourning will prevent their
going to the Easter charity ball," said Mrs. Gibson, plaintively.
"I shan't like to take you two girls, if you are not to have any
partners. It will put me in such an awkward position. I wish we could
join on to the Towers party. That would secure you partners, for they
always bring a number of dancing men, who might dance with you after
they had done their duty by the ladies of the house. But really
everything is so changed since dear Lady Cumnor has been an invalid
that, perhaps, they won't go at all."
This Easter ball was a great subject of conversation with Mrs.
Gibson. She sometimes spoke of it as her first appearance in society
as a bride, though she had been visiting once or twice a week all
winter long. Then she shifted her ground, and said she felt so much
interest in it, because she would then have the responsibility of
introducing both her own and Mr. Gibson's daughter to public notice,
though the fact was that pretty nearly every one who was going to
this ball had seen the two young ladies--though not their ball
dresses--before. But, aping the manners of the aristocracy as far
as she knew them, she intended to "bring out" Molly and Cynthia on
this occasion, which she regarded in something of the light of a
presentation at Court. "They are not out yet," was her favourite
excuse when either of them was invited to any house to which she did
not wish them to go, or they were invited without her. She even made
a difficulty about their "not being out" when Miss Browning--that
old friend of the Gibson family--came in one morning to ask the two
girls to come to a friendly tea and a round game afterwards; this
mild piece of gaiety being designed as an attention to three of Mrs.
Goodenough's grandchildren--two young ladies and their schoolboy
brother--who were staying on a visit to their grand-mamma.
"You are very kind, Miss Browning, but, you see, I hardly like to let
them go--they are not out, you know, till after the Easter ball."
"Till when we are invisible," said Cynthia, always ready with her
mockery to exaggerate any pretension of her mother's. "We are so high
in rank that our sovereign must give us her sanction before we can
play a round game at your house."
Cynthia enjoyed the idea of her own full-grown size and stately gait,
as contrasted with that of a meek, half-fledged girl in the nursery;
but Miss Browning was half puzzled and half affronted.