Page:The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton.djvu/54

28 gave a private supper, besides the usual one, to which we were invited; and in those days there were polkas, valses, quadrilles, and galops. Old stagers (mammas) had told me to consider myself very lucky if I got four dances, but I was engaged seven or eight deep soon after I entered the ballroom, and had more partners than I could dance with in one night. Of course mother was delighted with me, and I was equally pleased with her: she looked so young and fashionable; and instead of frightening young men away, as she had always done in the country, she appeared to attract them, engage them in conversation, and seemed to enjoy everything; she was such a nice chaperone. I was very much confused at the amount of staring (I did not know that every new girl was stared at on her first appearance); and one may think how vain and incredulous I was, when I overheard some one telling my mother that I had been quoted as the new beauty at his club. Fancy, poor ugly me!

I shall not forget my enjoyment of that first ball. I had always been taught to look upon it as the opening of Fashion's fairy gates to a paradise; nor was I disappointed, for, to a young girl who has never seen anything, her first entrance into a brilliant ballroom is very intoxicating. The blaze of light and colour, the perfume of scent and bouquet, the beautiful dresses, the spirited music, the seemingly joyous multitude of happy faces, laughing and talking as if care were a myth, the partners flocking round the door to see the new arrivals—all was delightful to me. But