CHAPTER III

A BALL, A SNOWSTORM, AND A SNOWBALL


Axcester's December Ball was a social event of importance in South
Somerset. At once formal and familiar--familiar, since nine-tenths of
the company dwelt close enough together to be on visiting terms--it
nicely preluded the domestic festivities of Christmas, and the more
public ones which began with the New Year and culminated in the great
County Balls at Taunton and Bath. Nor were the families around Axcester
jaded with dancing, as those in the neighbourhood of Bath, for example;
but discussed dresses and the prospects of the Ball for some weeks
beforehand, and, when the day came, ordered out the chariot or barouche
in defiance of any ordinary weather.

The weather since Dorothea's visit to the Orange Room had included a
frost, a fall of snow with a partial thaw, and a second and much
severer frost; and by Wednesday afternoon the hill below Bayfield wore
a hard and slippery glaze. Endymion, however, had seen to the roughing
of the horses. Thin powdery snow began to fall as the Bayfield barouche
rolled past the gates into the high road; and Narcissus, who considered
himself a weather-prophet, foretold a thaw before morning. Unless the
weather grew worse, the party would drive back to Bayfield; but the old
caretaker in the Town House had orders to light fires there and prepare
the bedrooms, and on the chance of being detained. Dorothea had brought
her maid Polly.