Uncle Joseph has just brought me a card of invitation to a party at the house of John B.’s mother. A queer little dark woman full of learning! With the card was a penciled note: “Our liberal entertainment will not take place until the week following Thanksgiving.” I suppose uncle wrote this, rather than talk about it before my aunt. But how sad it must be for two really well-meaning people not to agree in their principles. Dear mother, I have kept this letter until after the party in order to tell thee about it, but I am afraid neither of us will quite enjoy my relation of it. In the first place aunt insisted upon dressing my hair and arranging some flowers about my blue silk frock. She is really an artist in those things, and with the help of the maid I scarcely knew myself! Forgive me, if I say I could but admire the creature they had constructed. And yet it made me cry, I looked like a stranger! I thought best not to say a word but to go just as I was, in order to please her. Every time I passed a glass I felt like an imposter! Dear Uncle Joseph drove with me in the carriage and came after me at what _they_ regard as an early hour, eleven o’clock. On the way he said, “Little girl, try and forget your furbelows, and next time I will persuade aunt to let you go in your simple white frock.” So I was comforted. And indeed I _tried_ hard to forget, but I could not. People looked at me on every hand, and I thought it must be because it was as if I was trying to be someone else than a Friend. Then came another trial. There was a large room with a linen cover over the rich carpet, and dancing going on. The musicians sat in the upper hall, and supper was served from ten on. I had no sooner gone through with the ceremony of various introductions, than I was surrounded by young men, who asked me to dance. I suppose they did so out of kindness to a stranger, but Anna W. helped me in my trouble, by saying “Yes” to each one that asked me, and then I explained that Friends did not think it right to dance, and one young man made us laugh heartily by saying: “Why, I thought you were a Quaker or a Shaker, or something that dances all the time, even when they go to church!” Did not that show gross ignorance? The supper, too, tried me, for everyone, almost without an exception, took a glass of wine! Anna told me it was a “light wine,” but _that_ could make no difference to me.