The sleigh was a large, roomy one, with back and front seats, and its big hood was drawn up and extended like a roof over the top, covering the heads of its occupants, but open at the sides. Clarissa was seated first, and well wrapped in the bearskin robes which adorned the sleigh, and then Betty tripped lightly down to have her little feet bestowed in a capacious foot-muff, as she carefully tucked her new gown around her and sat beside Clarissa. Gulian, in full evening dress, with small clothes, plum-colored satin coat and cocked hat, took possession of the front seat. Pompey cracked his whip, and the spirited horses were off with a plunge and bound, as Peter, the irrepressible, shouted from the doorway, where with grandma he had been an interested spectator of proceedings, "A Happy New Year to us all, and mind, Betty, you only take the handsomest gallants for partners." De Lancey Place had been the scene of many festivities, and was famed far and wide for its hospitality, but (it was whispered) this New Year ball was to excel all others. The mansion stood in the centre of beautiful meadow-land, with a background of dark pines, and these showed forth finely against the snow which covered the lawns and feathered the branches of the tall oak-trees in front of the door. Lanterns gleamed here and there, up the drive and across the wide piazza; at the door were the colored servants, in livery imported direct from England, and from within came sounds of music. As Pompey swept his horses up to the step with an extra flourish of his whip, a group of British officers, who had just alighted from another sleigh, hastened to meet Clarissa and assist her descent. "On my word, Clarissa," said Gulian, a few minutes later, as he offered her his hand to conduct her to the ballroom, "I never saw Betty look so lovely. Your pink brocade becomes her mightily, and her slender shape shows forth charmingly. Where did you procure those knots of rose-colored ribbon which adorn the waist? I do not remember them." "That is my secret--and Betty's; she vowed the gown would not be complete without them, so I indulged the child, and I find her taste in dress perfect. Captain Sir John Faulkner seems greatly taken with her, does be not?" "Aye, but let us hasten to find our hostess. They will be forming for the minuet directly, and you must dance it with me, sweet wife,--unless you prefer another partner." Clarissa's response to this lover-like speech was evidently satisfactory, for presently Betty beheld her sister and Gulian take places at the head of the room, next Madam De Lancey, who opened her ball with Sir Henry Clinton. Betty, since her arrival in New York, had been trained and tutored for the minuet by both Clarissa and Kitty, and here was Captain Sir John Faulkner, an elderly but gallant beau, supplicating for the honor of her hand in the opening dance.