The conversation at length becomes general, and is chiefly about the ball, which is no further off now than the next evening.
Later on in the day Lady Woodhouse is to arrive, she having promised to chaperone her three nieces to the ball.
The dresses for the ball have all been finished off satisfactorily, and now that the evening of the 10th has really arrived, the three girls are standing in the drawing-room, preparatory to starting with their aunt for the Court.
They make a pretty group in their simple, white silk gowns and natural flowers. Doris is perhaps a little the most important looking, as being the eldest of the three. Standing with a handsome posy of choice hothouse flowers (sent down from London that morning by Mr. Ferrars) in her hand, she looks, as she certainly is, a very pretty and graceful girl.
Honor, with an opposition posy, which had arrived with some mystery that afternoon, and is explained with great persistency by Dick as being an offering from Ernest Hildyard, looks almost equally pretty to-night, with a soft flush upon her cheeks and a happy light in her eyes, which seems lately to have become habitual to them. But it is Molly who carries off the palm for beauty on this occasion, though not, perhaps, looking in the same ecstatic spirits as her two sisters; and her mother as she looks at her feels a little pardonable pride in the thought that probably her three daughters will be the best-looking girls in the ball-room.
"She is looking lovely to-night!" whispers the delighted mother to Honor. "I do wish Hugh were here to see her, poor fellow!"
Lady Woodhouse and Molly are also provided with posies of choice flowers, Priscilla having left them at the Rookery that evening about six, with her masters' compliments, a card being tied on each, one for "Lady Woodhouse," the other "Miss Mary Merivale."
Evidently some little bird had whispered to the old gentlemen that it would be quite unnecessary to send a similar offering to either Doris or Honor.
"We must take care what we are about, Ben," remarked Mr. Edward to his brother, "or we shall have these two young fellows getting jealous of us."
When the only available fly in the village is at length announced by Dick and Bobby, who have both been on the tiptoe of expectation for some time, Lady Woodhouse gathers up her skirts, and followed by her three nieces walks down the gravel path, Dick being in attendance to receive her goloshes, which, though there has not been a drop of rain for weeks, she insists on wearing over her evening shoes until she shall be safely seated in the aforesaid fly.