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dy to reproach her mother for the reassuring words that had helped to generate it. "What if it is pretty? it is old-fashioned. No matter that the lace is rich, when nobody wears it. I must look as though I were dressed in my grandmother's clothes. I wish I was back in my poor home. There I am at least sheltered from criticism. I am a fool in daring to face fashion: I am the silly moth in the candle."
If these were Mary's thoughts as she sat there with her two friends, what must they have become as the regally-dressed ladies, one after another, were announced? There were the majestic sweep of velvet, the floating of cloudlike gossamer, the flashing diamond, the starry pearl, the flaming ruby, the blazing carbuncle. There were marvelous toilets where contrast and harmony and picturesqueness--the effect of every color and ornament--had been patiently studied as the artist studies each shade and line on his canvas. And when the laugh and the jest and the wit were sounding all about her, and the intoxicating music came sweeping in from the dancing-room, there came over Mary a lost feeling amid the strange faces and voices--a bewildered, dizzy feeling, such as the semi-conscious opium-eater might have, half real, half dreaming. It was all so strange, so separate from her, as though, herself invisible, she was watching a festival among a different order of beings. Everybody was coming and going, continually varying his pastime, while she sat as unobserved as though invisible. Occasionally an eye-glass was leveled at her, or some lady accidentally placed beside her superciliously inspected the lace and green brocade.
Mrs. Van Pelt found her in the course of the evening, and insisted that she should go to the dancing-room and see the dancing. Mary begged to remain seated where she was. She dreaded any move that would render her more conspicuous, and dreaded especially being recalled to Christian's mind. But the hostess insisted, so the wretched girl crept out of her retreat, and with a dizzy step traversed