The day of the Hunt Ball brought pleasure enough to thrust aside every other thought. Miss Piper had done as well as if she had been born and bred in Paris. Daphne’s white satin gown fitted the slim and supple figure to perfection. It was not the ivory tint of late years, but that exquisite pearly white, with a blackish tint in the shadows, which one sees in old pictures. Daphne, with her wavy hair coiled at the back of her beautifully-shaped head, and with just one spray of stephanotis nestling in the coils, looked like a Juliet painted by Sir Joshua. It was Juliet’s dress, as Juliet used to be dressed by actresses of an age less given to the research of correctness and elaboration in costume. The single string of pearls on the pearly neck, the bodice modestly draping the lovely shoulders, the round white arms peeping from elbow-sleeves of satin and lace, the long loose gloves, the slender feet in white satin sandalled shoes, meant for dancing—not in those impossible high-heeled instruments of torture which Parisian bootmakers have inflicted on weak woman—all had something of an old-fashioned air; but it was a very lovely old fashion, and Madoline was delighted with the result. ‘Rather _outré_, don’t you think?’ said Mrs. Ferrers, sourly contemplative of Daphne’s fresh young beauty, which made her own complexion look so much yellower than usual, when she happened to glance across the girl’s shoulder at her own face in the big cheval glass. ‘A little too suggestive of Kate Greenaway’s Baby Books.’ She was trying to settle herself in her panoply of state, a gorgeous arrangement in ruby velvet and cream-coloured satin, which the little Frenchwoman in the Rue Vivienne had only sent off in time to reach Mrs. Ferrers two hours ago, after keeping her in an agony of mind for the last three days. It was a very splendid gown, so slashed, and draped, and festooned, that it was a mystery how it could ever be put together. The velvet cuirass was laced up the back with thick gold cord, and fitted like a strait-waistcoat; and the ruby scarf was fringed with heavy bullion, which drooped above a stormy sea of cream-coloured satin, that went billowing and surging round the lady’s legs till it met a long narrow streak of ruby velvet lined with satin, which meandered for about twelve feet along the floor. That Mrs. Ferrers must be a nuisance to herself and everybody else in such a dress no one in their senses could doubt; but then on the other hand the gown was undoubtedly in the latest fashion, and was one which must evoke a pang of envy in every female breast. ‘I don’t wonder you look disdainfully at my short petticoats, Aunt Rhoda,’ said Daphne, smiling at the effect of her sandalled ankles as she pirouetted before the looking-glass; ‘but I think, when it comes to dancing, I shall be better off than you with your velvet train.’