Everybody took position at once, and began to look very smiling and altogether at ease.—False alarm. Only a parcel of spoons—“loaned,” as the inland folks say when they mean lent, by a neighbor.
“Better late than never!” said the Colonel, “let me heft them spoons.”
Mrs. Sprowle came down into her chair again as if all her bones had been bewitched out of her.
“I'm pretty nigh beat out a'ready,” said she, “before any of the folks has come.”
They sat silent awhile, waiting for the first arrival. How nervous they got! and how their senses were sharpened!
“Hark!” said Miss Matilda—“what 's that rumblin'?”
It was a cart going over a bridge more than a mile off, which at any other time they would not have heard. After this there was a lull, and poor Mrs. Sprowle's head nodded once or twice. Presently a crackling and grinding of gravel;—how much that means, when we are waiting for those whom we long or dread to see! Then a change in the tone of the gravel-crackling.
“Yes, they have turned in at our gate. They're comin'! Mother! mother!”
Everybody in position, smiling and at ease. Bell rings. Enter the first set of visitors. The Event of the Season has begun.
“Law! it's nothin' but the Cranes' folks! I do believe Mahala 's come in that old green de-laine she wore at the Surprise Party!”
Miss Matilda had peeped through a crack of the door and made this observation and the remark founded thereon. Continuing her attitude of attention, she overheard Mrs. Crane and her two daughters conversing in the attiring-room, up one flight.
“How fine everything is in the great house!” said Mrs. Crane—“jest look at the picters!”
“Matildy Sprowle's drawin's,” said Ada Azuba, the eldest daughter.
“I should think so,” said Mahala Crane, her younger sister—a wide-awake girl, who had n't been to school for nothing, and performed a little on the lead pencil herself. “I should like to know whether that's a hay-cock or a mountain!”
Miss Matilda winced; for this must refer to her favorite monochrome, executed by laying on heavy shadows and stumping them down into mellow harmony—the style of drawing which is taught in six lessons, and the kind of specimen which is executed in something less than one hour. Parents and other very near relatives are sometimes gratified with these productions, and cause them to be framed and hung up, as in the present instance.
“I guess we won't go down jest yet,” said Mrs. Crane, “as folks don't seem to have come.”
So she began a systematic inspection of the dressing-room and its conveniences.
“Mahogany four-poster;—come from the Jordans', I cal'la,te. Marseilles quilt. Ruffles all round the piller. Chintz curtings—jest put up—o' purpose for the party, I'll lay ye a dollar.—What a nice washbowl!” (Taps it with a white knuckle belonging to a red finger.) “Stone chaney.—Here's a bran'-new brush and comb—and here's a scent-bottle. Come here, girls, and fix yourselves in the glass, and scent your pocket-handkerchers.”
And Mrs. Crane bedewed her own kerchief with some of the eau de Cologne of native manufacture—said on its label to be much superior to the German article.
It was a relief to Mrs. and the Miss Cranes when the bell rang and the next guests were admitted. Deacon and Mrs. Soper—Deacon Soper of the Rev. Mr. Fairweather's church, and his lady. Mrs. Deacon Soper was directed, of course, to the ladies' dressing-room, and her husband to the other apartment, where gentlemen were to leave their outside coats and hats. Then came Mr. and Mrs. Briggs, and then the three Miss Spinneys, then Silas Peckham, Head of the Apollinean Institute, and Mrs. Peckham, and more after them, until at last the ladies' dressing-room got so full that one might have thought it was a trap none of them could get out of. In truth, they all felt a little awkwardly. Nobody wanted to be first to venture down-stairs. At last Mr. Silas Peckham thought it was time to make a move for the parlor, and for this purpose presented himself at the door of the ladies' dressing-room.
“Lorindy, my dear!” he exclaimed to Mrs. Peckham—“I think there can be no impropriety in our joining the family down-stairs.”
Mrs. Peckham laid her large, flaccid arm in the sharp angle made by the black sleeve which held the bony limb her husband offered, and the two took the stair and struck out for the parlor. The ice was broken, and the dressing-room began to empty itself into the spacious, lighted apartments below.
Mr. Silas Peckham slid into the room with Mrs. Peckham alongside, like a shad convoying a jelly-fish.
“Good-evenin', Mrs. Sprowle! I hope I see you well this evenin'. How 's your haalth, Colonel Sprowle?”
“Very well, much obleeged to you. Hope you and your good lady are well. Much pleased to see you. Hope you'll enjoy yourselves. We've laid out to have everything in good shape—spared no trouble nor ex”—
“pence,”—said Silas Peckham.
Mrs. Colonel Sprowle, who, you remember, was a Jordan, had nipped the Colonel's statement in the middle of the word Mr. Peckham finished, with a look that jerked him like one of those sharp twitches women keep giving a horse when they get a chance to drive one.
Mr. and Mrs. Crane, Miss Ada Azuba, and Miss Mahala Crane made their entrance. There had been a discussion about the necessity and propriety of inviting this family, the head of which kept a small shop for hats and boots and shoes. The Colonel's casting vote had carried it in the affirmative.—How terribly the poor old green de-laine did cut up in the blaze of so many lamps and candles.
—Deluded little wretch, male or female, in town or country, going to your first great party, how little you know the nature of the ceremony in which you are to bear the part of victim! What! are not these garlands and gauzy mists and many-colored streamers which adorn you, is not this music which welcomes you, this radiance that glows about you, meant solely for your enjoyment, young miss of seventeen or eighteen summers, now for the first time swimming unto the frothy, chatoyant, sparkling, undulating sea of laces and silks and satins, and white-armed, flower-crowned maidens struggling in their waves beneath the lustres that make the false summer of the drawing-room?
Stop at the threshold! This is a hall of judgment you are entering; the court is in session; and if you move five steps forward, you will be at its bar.
There was a tribunal once in France, as you may remember, called the Chambre Ardente, the Burning Chamber. It was hung all round with lamps, and hence its name. The burning chamber for the trial of young maidens is the blazing ball-room. What have they full-dressed you, or rather half-dressed you for, do you think? To make you look pretty, of course! Why have they hung a chandelier above you, flickering all over with flames, so that it searches you like the noonday sun, and your deepest dimple cannot hold a shadow? To give brilliancy to the gay scene, no doubt!—No, my clear! Society is inspecting you, and it finds undisguised surfaces and strong lights a convenience in the process. The dance answers the purpose of the revolving pedestal upon which the “White Captive” turns, to show us the soft, kneaded marble, which looks as if it had never been hard, in all its manifold aspects of living loveliness. No mercy for you, my love! Justice, strict justice, you shall certainly have—neither more nor less. For, look you, there are dozens, scores, hundreds, with whom you must be weighed in the
