fore her, she looked at it with a pleased
eye and touched it with a willing hand. She held the ribbon against
the muslin, leaning her head on one side, and enjoyed herself. Now
and again she would turn her face upon Rachel's figure, and she would
almost indulge a wish that this young man might like her child in the
new dress. Ah!--that was surely wicked. But if so, how wicked are
most mothers in this Christian land!

The morning had gone very comfortably with them during Dorothea's
absence. Mrs. Prime had hardly taken her departure before a note came
from Mrs. Butler Cornbury, confirming Mr. Comfort's offer as to the
carriage. "Oh, papa, what have you done?"--she had said when her
father first told her. "Now I must stay there all the night, for of
course she'll want to go on to the last dance!" But, like her father,
she was good-natured, and therefore, though she would hardly have
chosen the task, she resolved, when her first groans were over, to
do it well. She wrote a kind note, saying how happy she should be,
naming her hour,--and saying that Rachel should name the hour for her
return.

"It will be very nice," said Rachel, rejoicing more than she should
have done in thinking of the comfortable grandeur of Mrs. Butler
Cornbury's carriage.

"And are you determined?" Mrs. Prime asked her mother that evening.

"It is too late to go back now, Dorothea," said Mrs. Ray, almost
crying.

"Then I cannot remain in the house," said Dorothea. "I shall go to
Miss Pucker's,--but not till that morning; so that if you think
better of it, all may be prevented yet."

But Mrs. Ray would not think better of it, and it was thus that the
preparations were made for Mrs. Tappitt's--ball. The word "party" had
now been dropped by common consent throughout Baslehurst.

CHAPTER VII.

AN ACCOUNT OF MRS. TAPPITT'S BALL--COMMENCED.

Mrs. Butler Cornbury was a very pretty woman. She possessed that
peculiar prettiness which is so often seen in England, and which
is rarely seen anywhere else. She was bright, well-featured, with
speaking lustrous eyes, with perfect complexion, and full bust, with
head of glorious shape and figure like a Juno;--and yet with all her
beauty she had ever about her an air of homeliness which made the
sweetness of her womanhood almost more attractive than the loveliness
of her personal charms. I have seen in Italy and in America women
perhaps as beautiful as any that I have seen in England, but in
neithe