noticed at each a most undue preponderance of black coats. Nearly
all the ladies were married, there were very few young girls; and it
would be a great improvement to the Christchurch parties if some of
the pretty and partnerless groups of a London ball-room, in all
their freshness of toilette, could be transferred to them. What a
sensation they would make, and what terrible heart-aches among the
young gentlemen would be the result of such an importation! There
were the same knots of men standing together as at a London party,
but I must say that, except so far as their tailor is concerned, I
think we have the advantage of you, for the gentlemen lead such
healthy lives that they all look more or less bronzed and stalwart--
in splendid condition, not like your pale dwellers in cities; and
then they come to a ball to dance, arriving early so as to secure
good partners, and their great ambition appears to be to dance every
dance from the first to the last. This makes it hard work for the
few ladies, who are not allowed to sit down for a moment, and I have
often seen a young and pretty partner obliged to divide her dances
between two gentlemen.


Although it tells only against myself, I must make you laugh at an
account of a snub I received at one of these balls. Early in the
evening I had danced with a young gentleman whose station was a long
way "up country," and who worked so hard on it that he very seldom
found time for even the mild dissipations of Christchurch; he was
good-looking and gentlemanly, and seemed clever and sensible, a
little _brusque_, perhaps, but one soon gets used to that here.
During our quadrille he confided to me that he hardly knew any
ladies in the room, and that his prospects of getting any dancing
were in consequence very blank. I did all I could to find partners