LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VI, Issue 697, 13 September 1876, Page 3

LITERATURE.

MY FIRST BALL. ( Concluded .) The evening of the ball came at last. Mrs Mason had been invited to drink tea with us, and in due time I found myself seated by her side in the fly. Once started, my spirits began to rise, in spite of a few misgivings with which my mother’s constantly repeated fear that I should be disappointed had infected me. Miss Fermor will be kind enough when she sees me, I argued to myself : it is always * out of sight, out of mind,’ with her. She will introduce me to everyone, and of course the Captain will be glad to dance with me. By the time we arrived I felt as confident as I had ever done of spending a pleasant evening; only I was rather sorry for poor Tom, and hoped he

might come early, and stay late, so as to have a chance of securing one quadride at least. The fly stopped. We stumbled up the narrow staircase, and passed into the ladies’ cloak-room, hung with pink and white calico, and where Mr Duff the linendraper’s young ladies were in attendance. As I shook out the skiits of my tarlatan the music struck up. and my heart beat fast. Possessing myself of a ball card—already, in imagination, inscribed with the names of future partners, Captain Ferraor’s name occurring there many times—l followed my chaperon into the tea-room. Here it was easy to distinguish those happy girls who were engaged, as they stood sipping the steaming beverage in conscious security of a partner; eager young men entered hastily, and bore them off, to the sound of a delicious valse; and in my impatience to be gone and to be dancing too, I scalded my throat with boiling tea, and after all had to wait until Mrs Mason’s leisurely enjoyment of her cup came to an end, and she and the doctor’s wife, with whom we had joined company, moved off slowly together. The fi■ at impression I was sensible of receiving as we stood in the doorway, detained by a knot of people collected there, was one of dust and—the orchestra occupying that corner-of overpowering noise ; but by-and-by, when we had pushed our way higher up the room, I saw the dancers clearly, and the noise melted once more into music. Glancing furtively round, I recognised few faces th*t I knew, and yet there seemed crowds of people present. I saw the apothecary’s young man; I saw Mr Duff and his daughters ; even Simms, in a splendid waistcoat was there ; nearly all the townspeople dancing, apparently, with each other. I noticed distinguished-looking, well-dressed groups, and those I sat down at once as guests at the Hall. Two or three of the county families were also present, and had also brought guests, but the line people danced as the tradesmen did, exclusively in their own ‘set,’and by-and-by I grew to wonder where my set was, where my place in this gay throng. But not at first. Dance succeeded dance, and though I sat on the red bench, the flowers in my bouquet—Tom had sent it out from A that morning—beginning t) droop ; my eyes aching with the light and the dust; my head throbbing painfully ; I still hoped on. But Miss Fermor, floating past, gave a look of surprise when she caught sight of me, and then a careless nod by way of greeting, and so vanished all my dreams of the many partners to whom she was to have introduced me. As for the Captain, devoted all the evening to a handsome woman dressed in pink and wearing diamonds, he was utterly unconscious of my presence, until, during some moment of confusion in a quadrille which he was dancing exactly opposite to me, he suddenly backed into my lap and, turning round to apologise, shook hands. ‘ What! Miss Bessie !’ he exclaimed. ‘ I thought you did not patronise balls. Your first, I suppose. Not bad for a little place like A—. You are enjoying yourself immensely, I daresay.’ And as the quadrille came to an end, lie offered his arm to his partner, and I watched them disappear into the tea-room. And with them Captain Fermor’s name disappeared and faded out altogether from my tablets, still blank and unsullied as when, in imagination, I had filled them up at first. By this time I think I should have been glad if even little Fry the apothecary had asked me to dance, but then I had so often and so systematically snubbed little Fry, he would no more have dreamed of dancing with me than with Miss Fermor herself. ‘ Are you very much amused, my dear V asked my chaperon. ‘ Beally it is a pretty sight, and it is pleasant to know who ss many of the people are. Mrs Dene has just pointed out to me Lady Mary Bryde —there, just opposite ; that is Sir Hugh speaking to Lady Fermor, and how beatiful the Honourable Mrs Lexborough is : black velvet, my dear, and such diamonds !’ Oh, yes; it was very amusing! I sat upright; I began to laugh and talk, to pass satirical remarks upon the company, to do my best to appear gay and animated, and as if all I had ever hoped from the ball was to sit on a bench by Mrs Mason and look at the Honourable Mrs Lexborough’s diamonds. And all the while, as Tom’s flowers drooped and fainted in my hot hand, there was a great lump in my throat, and my heart ached with the bitterness of disappointment. I fancied I saw Miss Fermor look at me, and addressed myself instantly with so much vivacity to the doctor, whose large expanse of white waistcoat just then deposited itself beside me, that the good man was fairly alarmed. I think in another moment I should have asked him to dance, but 1 caught sight suddenly of a familiar face in the doorway, the good honest face of Tom himself ! My heart gave a great bound, and I stood up, not thinking what I was about; not thinking at all, only knowing that he could be coming nowhere but in my direction, and knowing that this time no disappointment was in store for me. He drew nearer as I rose. In another moment his arm was round my waist, and his kind voice in my ear, as we floated off amongst the dancers. ‘ That was good of you, Bessie. Better than your word even, to keep a dance for me.’ I did not answer him until we stopped, and then I contrived to say, although that horrid lump in my throat seemed almost to choke me, ‘ It was not good, Tom, I have had no dancing. You and my mother were quite right. My fine new friends forgot me; and oh, I was so glad to see your face. If I have gained nothing else to-night, I have gained the knowledge that old friends are better than new. I beg you to forgive me, Tom, In old days you used to forgive me when 1 had been cross, and I have been very cross to you and very foolish this long time ’ ‘Hush, Bessie! Hush, my darling?’ he whispered. But I could not be silent. Even as his arm came round my waist again and went oh with the waltz, 1 cried, ‘ Say that you forgive me, Tom !’ Flowers had been arranged in one of the balconies from which I had once seen our member harangue an electioning mob, and the balcony itself was covered in and hung with red and white, but on that cold night, and owing to the many draughts about the place, the romantic retreat had tempted no one to enter. Tom and I defied the draughts. Leaving the waltz unfinished, we took refuge in the balcony, and there, amongst the flowers, Tom asked once again whether his future really mattered nothing at all to me. And this time I gave a different answer, for I knew at last that Tom’s future and mine were to be the same.