deal more than she ever gave out--an
accomplishment, in Mr Milburn's eyes, on the soundest basis. She looked
remarkably pretty and had remarkably good style, and as she proceeded
with her mazurka she was thinking, "He has never been asked here before:
how perfectly silly he must feel coming so early!" Presently as Lorne
grew absorbed in talk and forgot his unhappy chance, she further
reflected, "I don't think I've ever seen him till now in evening
dress; it does make him a good figure." This went on behind a faultless
coiffure and an expression almost classical in its detachment; but if
Miss Milburn could have thought on a level with her looks I, for one,
would hesitate to take any liberty with her meditations.

However, the bell began to ring with the briefest intermissions, the
maid in the cap to make constant journeys. She opened the door with a
welcoming smile, having practically no deportment to go with the cap:
human nature does not freeze readily anywhere. Dora had to leave the
piano: Miss Filkin decided that when fifteen had come she would change
her chair. Fifteen soon came, the young ladies mostly in light silks
or muslins cut square, not low, in the neck, with half-sleeves. This
moderation was prescribed in Elgin, where evening dress was more a
matter of material than of cut, a thing in itself symbolical if it were
desirable to consider social evolution here. For middle-aged ladies high
necks and long sleeves were usual; and Mrs Milburn might almost have
been expected to appear thus, in a nicely made black broche, perhaps. It
was recognized as like Mrs Milburn, in keeping with her unbending ideas,
to wear a dress cut as square as any young lady's, with just a little
lace let in, of a lavender stripe. The young men were nearly all in the
tailor's convention for their sex the world over, with here and there
a short coat that also went to church; but there some departures from
orthodoxy in the matter of collars and ties, and where white bows were
achieved, I fear none of the wearers would have dreamed of defending
them from the charge of being ready-made.

It was a clear, cold January night and everybody, as usual, walked to
the party; the snow creaked and ground underfoot, one could hear the
arriving steps in the drawing-room. They stamped and scraped to get rid
of it in the porch, and hurried through the hall, muffled figures in
overshoes, to emerge from an upstairs bedroom radiant, putting a last
touch to ha