"than anything else that can possibly happen
in London. What if it should be wet, and won't it be annoying if it is a
cold night and they draw the heavy curtains close together?"

But it was beautiful day, almost too warm for a ball, and the heavy
curtains were not drawn. The family did not court observation; it was
serenely unconscious of such a thing. As to our side of the street, I
think we may have been the only people at all interested in the affair
now so imminent. The others had something more sensible to do, I fancy,
than patching up romances about their neighbours.

At noon the florists decorated the entrance with palms, covered the
balcony with a gay awning, and hung the railing with brilliant masses
of scarlet and yellow flowers. At two the caterers sent silver, tables,
linen, and dishes, and a Broadwood grand piano was installed; but at
half-past seven, when we sat down to dinner, we were a trifle anxious,
because so many things seemed yet to do before the party could be a
complete success.

Mr. Beresford and his mother were dining with us, and we had sent
invitations to our London friends, the Hon. Arthur Ponsonby and Bertie
Godolphin, to come later in the evening. These read as follows:--

Private View
The pleasure of your company is requested
at the coming-out party of
The Hon. Patricia Brighthelmston
July --- 189-
On the opposite side of the street.
Dancing about 10-30. 9 Dovermarle Street.

At eight o'clock, as we were finishing our fish course, which chanced
to be fried sole, the ball began literally to roll, and it required the
greatest ingenuity on Francesca's part and mine to be always down in our
seats when Dawson entered with the dishes, and always at the window when
he was absent.

An enormous van had appeared, with half a dozen men walking behind it.
In a trice, two of them had stretched a wire trellis across one wall
of the drawing-room, and two more were trailing roses from floor to
ceiling. Others tied the dark wood of the stair railing with tall
Madonna lilies; then they hung garlands of flowers from corner to corner
and, alas! could not refrain from framing the mirror in smilax, nor
from hanging the chandeliers with that same ugly, funereal, and
artificial-looking vine,--this idea being the principal stock-in-trade
of every florist in the universe.

We could not catch even a