possessed or could obtain an evening suit, and plenty of check trousers
and red neckties were hopping about. Among the villagers many a touch
suggested costume. A young girl had borrowed her grandmother's wedding
dress, and a young man wore a canary-coloured waistcoat and a blue
coastguardsman's coat of old time. These touches of fancy and personal
taste divided the villagers from the household servants. The butlers
seemed on the watch for side dishes, and the valets suggested hair brushes
and hot water. Cooks trailed black silk dresses adorned with wide collars,
and fastened with gold brooches containing portraits of their late
husbands; and the fine shirt fronts set off with rich pearls, the
lavender-gloved hands, the delicate faces, expressive of ease and leisure,
made Ginger's two friends--young Mr. Preston and young Mr. Northcote
--noticeable among this menial, work-a-day crowd. Ginger loved the
upper circles, and now he romped the polka in the most approved
London fashion, his elbows advanced like a yacht's bowsprit, and, his
coat-tails flying, he dashed through a group of tradespeople who were
bobbing up and down, hardly advancing at all.

Esther was now being spoken of as the belle of the ball, she had danced
with young Mr. Preston, and seeing her sitting alone Grover called her and
asked her why she was not dancing. Esther answered sullenly that she was
tired.

"Come, the next polka, just to show there is no ill-feeling." Half a dozen
times William repeated his demand. At last she said--

"You've spoilt all my pleasure in the dancing."

"I'm sorry if I've done that, Esther. I was jealous, that's all."