th all the exotic gaiety of the
season. The park was crowded with riders at one, and was almost
impassable at six. Dress was outvying dress, and equipage equipage. Men
and women, but principally women, seemed to be intent on finding out
new ways of scattering money. Tradesmen no doubt knew much of
defaulters, and heads of families might find themselves pressed for
means; but to the outside west-end eye looking at the outside west-end
world it seemed as though wealth was unlimited and money a drug. To
those who had known the thing for years, to young ladies who were now
entering on their seventh or eighth campaign, there was a feeling of
business about it all which, though it buoyed them up by its
excitement, robbed amusement of most of its pleasure. A ball cannot be
very agreeable in which you may not dance with the man you like and are
not asked by the man you want; at which you are forced to make a note
that that full-blown hope is futile, and that this little bud will
surely never come to flower. And then the toil of smiles, the pretence
at flirtation, the long-continued assumption of fictitious character,
the making of oneself bright to the bright, solemn to the solemn, and
romantic to the romantic, is work too hard for enjoyment. But our
heroine had no such work to do. She was very much admired and could
thoroughly enjoy the admiration. She had no task to perform. She was
not carrying out her profession by midnight labours. Who shall say
whether now and again a soft impalpable regret,--a regret not
recognised as such,--may not have stolen across her mind, telling her
that if she had seen all this before she was married instead of
afterwards, she might have found a brighter lot for herself? If it were
so, the only enduring effect of such a feeling was a renewal of that
oft-made resolution that she would be in love with her husband. The
ladies whom she knew had generally their carriages and riding horses.
She had only a brougham, and had that kept for her by the generosity of
her father. The Dean, when coming to town, had brought with him the
horse which she used to ride, and wished that it should remain. But
Lord George, with a husband's solicitude, and perhaps with something of
a poor man's proper dislike to expensive habits, had refused his
permission. She soon, too, learned to know the true sheen of diamonds,
the luxury of pearls, and the richness of rubies; whereas she herself
wore only the little ornaments which