CHAPTER XXVI

A CHARITY BALL

At the present time there are few people at a public ball besides the dancers and their chaperones, or relations in some degree interested in them.  But in the days when Molly and Cynthia were young—­before railroads were, and before their consequences, the excursion-trains, which take every one up to London now-a-days, there to see their fill of gay crowds and fine dresses—­to go to an annual charity-ball, even though all thought of dancing had passed by years ago, and without any of the responsibilities of a chaperone, was a very allowable and favourite piece of dissipation to all the kindly old maids who thronged the country towns of England.  They aired their old lace and their best dresses; they saw the aristocratic magnates of the country side; they gossipped with their coevals, and speculated on the romances of the young around them in a curious yet friendly spirit.  The Miss Brownings would have thought themselves sadly defrauded of the gayest event of the year, if anything had prevented their attending the charity-ball, and Miss Browning would have been indignant, Miss Phoebe aggrieved, had they not been asked to Ashcombe and Coreham, by friends at each place, who had, like them, gone through the dancing stage of life some five-and-twenty years before, but who liked still to haunt the scenes of their former enjoyment, and see a younger generation dance on ‘regardless of their doom.’  They had come in one of the two sedan-chairs that yet lingered in use at Hollingford; such a night as this brought a regular harvest of gains to the two old men who, in what was called the ‘town’s livery,’ trotted backwards and forwards with their many loads of ladies and finery.  There were some postchaises, and some ‘flys,’ but after mature deliberation Miss Browning had decided to keep to the more comfortable custom of the sedan-chair; ‘which,’ as she said to Miss Piper, one of her visitors, ’came into the parlour, and got full of the warm air, and nipped you up, and carried you tight and cosy into another warm room, where you could walk out without having to show your legs by going up steps, or down steps.’  Of course only one could go at a time; but here again a little of Miss Browning’s good management arranged everything so very nicely, as Miss Hornblower (their other visitor) remarked.  She went first, and remained in the warm cloak-room until her hostess followed; and then the two ladies went arm-in-arm into the ball-room, finding out convenient seats whence they could watch the arrivals and speak to their passing friends, until Miss Phoebe and Miss Piper entered, and came to take possession of the seats reserved for them by Miss Browning’s care.  These two younger ladies came in, also arm-in-arm, but with a certain timid flurry in look and movement very different from the composed dignity of their seniors (by two or three years).  When all four were once more assembled together, they took breath, and began to converse.