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Updated: June 19, 2025
He thought scornfully of a certain intriguing lady of his acquaintance at Madras who had borrowed money of him to whom he had given ball-dresses; and of another, whose selfish extravagance had ruined one of the best of men. Did all women tend to be of this make, however poetic might be their outward seeming?
As we look round the world, and enumerate the commodities which by common consent are the most useful, salt, water, bread, and so forth, the striking paradox presents itself that these are among the cheapest of all commodities; far cheaper than champagne, motor-cars or ball-dresses, which we could very well get on without.
I can't describe it positively; I can only say I don't find it anywhere now. Not at the bottom of champagne glasses; not, strange as it may seem, in that extra half-yard or so of shoulder that some women have their ball-dresses cut to expose.
"You are bent on perpetrating further gaiety to-night," said the latter, glancing at the ball-dresses of the two cousins; "are you in the colours of the Houston faction, or in those of the Peabody." "Not in pea-green, certainly," returned Eve, laughing "as you may see; but in simple white." "You intend then to be 'led a measure' at Mrs. Houston's.
Even the ball-dresses of these poor little things were piously irreproachable; their muslin gowns came up to their chins with an endless number of thick ruches, and the sleeves came down to their wrists. Swathing in this way their natural charms, this costume gave them a vague resemblance to Egyptian hermae; though from these blocks of muslin rose enchanting little heads of tender melancholy.
Cynthia, too, was so much admired; and as for her dress, Mrs. Kirkpatrick had showered down ball-dresses and wreaths, and pretty bonnets and mantles, like a fairy godmother. Mr. Gibson's poor present of ten pounds shrank into very small dimensions compared with all this munificence. 'And they're so fond of her, I don't know when we shall have her back, was Mrs. Gibson's winding-up sentence.
Every detail increased the sense of strangeness. There were a number of strange clothes, ball-dresses and others, hanging in her cupboard, strange odds and ends thrust confusedly into her bureau. She found at length a blue cotton frock of her own, which seemed just home from the wash.
"It is a great deal worse to drive without her," said the impetuous lady. "She is the only person who lets me enjoy things, and now I cannot enjoy them in her absence. Yesterday I drove alone over the three beaches, and left her at home with a dress-maker. Never did I see so many lines of surf; but they only seemed to me like some of Kate's ball-dresses, with the prevailing flounces, six deep.
And I was thrown like a rag on a heap of pieces. The heap of pieces was composed of ball-dresses of the little baroness. One morning, three or four days later, the aide-de-camp rushed in, crying, "The Versaillists! The Versaillists are in Paris!" Thereupon Mme.
She and her ball-dresses are described in the papers precisely as if she were an animal at a show which indeed is what she has become; and she's eager to be thus described, because she and her mother even if her mother was once a lady and knew better are haunted by one perpetual, sickening fear, the fear of being left out.
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