Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/289

Rh It is hanging at my side—an unmarked expanse as spotless as the wallflowers' boots; and I feel rather ashamed of it.

"You will keep all your waltzes for me?" he says, scribbling down his initials at somewhat short intervals. Yes; that is to say, if you do not meet with somebody whose waltzing you prefer to mine."

We walk about and make confidential remarks to each other concerning the company. We agree that those bare-necked, plumed old dowagers are unpleasant spectacles; but that the decorous, high-gowned, middle-aged folk who wear their own hair, and not too many fal-lals, are good to look upon, and by no means to be pitied, since they have had their fun, danced their jigs, and now, youth's fits and fevers, ups and downs past, cannot surely be sorry to sit down in their comfortable prosperity and rest. We agree that it would be a kindness on the part of any one present to fetch a shawl to cover Mrs. Lister's unveiled charms; but on my suggesting that Paul should take a neighbouring antimacassar to her with his own compliments, he proves himself to be greater at discretion than valour. We think it would be a hard nut for a philosopher to crack if he were called on to decide why so many ancient, purblind, doting old people persist in going to balls, where they are neither useful nor ornamental, and are divided in opinion as to whether supper or scandal are the attractions, or an absolute determination not to confess themselves too old for society and conviviality, is at the root of the matter. We decide that the lack of tournure in the girls present is appalling (although, for the matter of that, I am about as well qualified for giving an opinion on that point as a South Sea Islander); and that whenever one sees a good figure it is generally capped by a plain face; and that the pretty-faced miss almost always has her head very ill set on her shoulders, and wears a badly made gown.