Nor did I feel a presentiment of doom this evening as I readied myself for the Earl's celebratory ball. I had from Isobel the loan of her maid, Marguerite, who having seen to her mistress's toilette, would now attempt to do some good to mine. The disparity in form and finery between Isobel and myself is material, I assure you; and so, while Marguerite fussed and lamented over the creases in my gown, an inevitable result of travel, I took up my pen and wrote to my dear sister Cassandra. It is a letter I fear that I must discard without posting — for soon I shall be required to convey other news, against which last evening's note may only be declared frivolous.

I wore my yellow patterned silk, the finest thing I own, though admittedly of a vanished season, and kept my head high as I entered the ballroom in Isobel's wake. The great room was ablaze with candles, grouped in their gilt holders against the pier glasses that line the walls, so that we seemed to move among tall trees and branches of leafy flame; and it was peopled with a glittering assemblage of gentlemen and ladies, some hundred at least, come from surrounding Hertfordshire and as far distant as London. It must be impossible for one of my means to rival the grandeur of Scargrave, much less of the Earl's circle of acquaintance; but I fortified myself with the knowledge of Isobel's kindness and thus braved the stares of my companions.

The Countess of Scargrave was magnificent in deep green silk, a gown she had recently acquired in Paris. That she has always possessed a certain style is indisputable; but now she also may claim the means to obtain it — and the Earl's great fortune could hardly be better spent. Isobel is a tall, well-formed woman, with a figure light and pleasing; it is generally agreed that her hair is her most extraordinary feature, it being thick and of a deep, lustrous red that cannot fail to command attention. For my own part, I must declare it is her eyes that appear to greatest advantage — being of the colour of sherry, and heavily fringed. The charms of her person would be as nothing, however, did she lack the sweet grace that customarily animates her countenance. Tonight, in the midst of her bridal ball, she was truly lovely, her head thrown back in laughter as she turned about the room.

That others were equally admiring of Isobel's beauty and great charm, I readily discerned, and briefly felt myself a pale shadow in her train. To lose one's cares in the gaiety of a ball, one must, perforce, be able to dance; and this requires a partner. At the advanced age of nearly seven-and-twenty, I had begun to know the fear of younger women. I had been suffered to sit during several dances at the last Bath assembly, while chits of fifteen turned and twirled their hearts upon the floor; and an unaccustomed envy had poisoned my happiness. I quailed to think that my fate tonight at Scargrave might be the same; but Isobel was as good as I had come to expect, and made me immediately acquainted with several gentlemen in her circle.

First among them was Fitzroy, Viscount Payne, her husband's nephew. Lord Payne is the only son of the Earl's younger brother these many years deceased; and if the Earl and Isobel are unblessed by sons of their own, Lord Payne will succeed to the title at the Earl's death. As a single man in possession of a good fortune, he must be in want of a wife; and so the eyes of many within Scargrave that night were turned to him in hope and calculation.

From what little I have seen of Fitzroy Payne thus far, however, I should judge him as likely to honour me with his attentions and his hand as any lady in the room. Indeed, his heart is not likely to be easily touched — and I suspect it already is given to another. Lord Payne is a grave gentleman of six-and-twenty, and though decidedly handsome, is possessed of such reserve that his notice was hardly calculated to improve my spirits. As Isobel pronounced my name, he kept his eyes a clear six inches above my head, clicked his heels smartly, and made a deep bow — offering not a word of salutation the while.

Next I was suffered to meet the eldest son of the Earl's deceased sister. Mr. George Hearst is a quiet gentleman of seven-and-twenty, charged with all the management of the home farm, which I understand from Isobel is not at all to that gentleman's liking. He wishes rather to take Holy Orders, with the view to obtaining one of the three livings[7] at the Earl's disposal when it should next come vacant. Pale and gaunt, his eyes shadowed with a care that must be ecclesiastical, he bears the stamp of a man long in converse with his God. His melancholy aspect and glowering looks, in the midst of so much rejoicing, cast a pall over the immediate party that even I, a relative stranger to them all, must feel acutely. Mr. George Hearst gave me an indifferent nod, and then returned to his contemplation of the grave — or so I assumed, from his stony aspect.

Isobel hastened then to make me known to Lieutenant Thomas Hearst, the ecclesiastic's younger brother; and as different from him as two men formed of the same union maybe.

Tom Hearst possesses a life commission in an excellent cavalry regiment, a face creased from laughing, unruly curls that bob when he bows low over a hand, and a charm that has undoubtedly reduced many a fashionable miss to tears and sighing. That the Lieutenant cuts a dashing figure in his dark blue uniform, and dances with more enthusiasm than skill, I may readily attest. When Isobel presented him, he bobbed in the aforesaid manner and immediately asked for my next dance; and so I instantly recovered from my fit of nerves and set out to determine something of the Lieutenant's character.

I did not have far to seek. At the glimpse of a blond head hovering over my shoulder and the scent of violets assailing my nose, I turned and surveyed Miss Fanny Delahoussaye, resplendent in a peacock-blue gown that displayed to excellent effect her ample bosom. Miss Delahoussaye laughed a little breathlessly — the result, no doubt, of too much activity and too little corset string — and reached a plump hand to her coiffure.