"How is it possible to dance those waltzes and galops you are so fond of in Europe? With your small rooms, choke-full of people, and every lady with yards of superfluous skirt trailing after her, I should think that, when you began to turn round, the ladies' dresses would twist about the gentlemen's legs, and you would all come to the ground together."
I told her that such a catastrophe would often happen were it not that the ladies' ball-dresses were usually made of such flimsy material that they readily gave way when they became twisted round any object.
"Then after a fast and furious dance," she said, "your ladies' costumes will not be much more ample than ours."
I tried to make her comprehend the mysteries of underclothing, and told her that they might lose several layers of their dress and after all be still sufficiently covered. This amused her greatly, and she made a hundred quaint remarks about the dilapidated and forlorn appearance of the fair dancers at the end of a ball, with their beautiful and costly dresses torn to ribbons, their hair all dusty and disheveled, their complexions spoiled, and their bodies sinking with fatigue.
Of course I told her it was not half so bad as she thought, and, besides, we never noticed how young ladies looked at the end of a ball, provided they looked well at the beginning.
On another occasion, Lily said:—
"One of the most disgusting of your amusements, must be your feasts, great and small, where ladies and gentlemen are not only not ashamed but actually take pride in assembling together to cram themselves with all sorts of food and drink. No wonder, with
