Blair and his wife discussed it amicably; they were more conciliatory and forbearing, now that there was an inharmonious chord between them, than before, when they had had their little differences, secure in their perfect understanding of each other. Blair promptly decided that they must go, else it would appear as if he were still unreasonably sore over his defeat. Mrs. Blair acquiesced in this. She could not, like Sylvia Shapleigh, have a new ball gown, but her white-silk wedding dress, that cherished gown, bought for her to be married to Skelton in, and in which she was actually married to Blair, was turned and furbished up for the occasion. Mrs. Blair felt the exquisite absurdity of this, and could not forbear smiling when she was engaged in her work. The night of the ball arrived--a July night, cool for the season. By seven o’clock the roads leading to Deerchase were full of great, old-fashioned coaches, gigs, stanhopes, and chaises, bringing the county gentry to the grand and much-talked-of ball. Mrs. Shapleigh, whose remains of beauty were not inconsiderable, had begun making her toilet at three o’clock in the day, and was in full regalia at six. She had on a superb crimson satin gown, and the bird of paradise nodded majestically on her head, while she wore so many necklaces around her neck that she looked like a Christmas turkey. Old Tom was out in his best full dress, of swallow-tailed blue coat and brass buttons, with a fine lawn tie to muffle up his throat, after the fashion, and thread cambric ruffles rushing out of his yellow-satin waistcoat. Sylvia had resisted her mother’s entreaties to wear a sash, to wear another necklace, to wear a wreath of artificial flowers, and various other adornments, and by the charming simplicity of her dress was even more successful than usual in persuading the world that she was handsome.