III

Madam, feeling that the years subdued her very little expanded gaily even in this so ridiculous town of wooden buildings with straddling verandas and unpaved sidewalks and dim fish-oil lamps on gum poles at the street corners. Government House with its low mean windows, the rickety bridge across the Rivulet St. David's spire like a three-tiered wedding-cake—to one whose very tissues still ached for Paris, for Brussels and Madrid they were all better than country. And the town was still splendid with military and naval uniforms, although these were sadly depleted since the Cessation and would soon disappear entirely so Louisa Sorley said.

"There are but a very few of the Twelfth and some other mixed drafts here at present," said kind Louisa. "And two British men-of-war and one French one. I have arranged some dinners for Jenny as you asked me, dear."

Very many regiments of foot had passed through Australasia since 1804. And young ensigns and captains had carried some of the brightest buds of the old colonial families away with them So it was Mrs. Beverley had lost all her daughters excepting Maria, whom she was now presenting under protest. Une situation presque comique, Madam thought.

"I could not let any man have her. She is my sole consolation," said Mrs. Beverley, weakly proud of Maria, who looked in her plain white gown as much like a schoolgirl as her generous young limbs would permit.

Ah, bah! thought Madam. How she will bore her partners! And she went off with great content to watch Celeste unpack Jenny's gowns.

Jenny loved her gowns of organdie and gauze and tulle, with their rose-pinks and their lemons and burning golds. But she was nearly sick with nervousness when, on the night of the ball, Celeste hooked her into the biggest Bluebell crinoline in the colony, and then slipped over her head the shining skirt. There page 188were twenty-two yards of ivory silk gauze in the skirt, and Heaven only knew how many festooned yards of Madam's frail and frosty point de Venise. In the big mirror and the light of a dozen candles in tall sticks on the floor she looked like a frightened puffball; but when the bodice was on and laced she was much more frightened still. "There's nothing of it!" she cried, agonized by so much gleaming nakedness.

"Put on the wreath," said Madam, floating about delightedly in lavender satin. This, she thought, returning to the French slang of other days, is going to knock the young bucks endways.

Jenny made a step to the door, the gauze streamers floating out from her white rosebud wreath; her hands filled with a Chinese fan of worked ivory and—here showed Madam's daring—a huge bouquet of crimson roses. But she could not pass that naked shameless thing in the mirror. "Give me a scarf, Celeste," she said faintly.

Madam snatched the scarf from her and picked up a hairbrush. "Goose! Would you like a stuff shawl of your Grandmamma Merrick's?" She applied the brush bristles sharply to Jenny's cheeks. "Stand still! That will rouge you until wine and excitement do it. Now, chérie, come."