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.