It was always a beautiful scene, this dance on New Year's Eve, which had been kept up by the family tradition as nearly in the old fashion as inexorable change would allow. Red carpet was laid down for the occasion: hot-house plants and evergreens were arranged in bowers at the extremities and in every recess of the gallery; and the old portraits stretching back through generations, even to the pre-portraying period, made a piquant line of spectators. Some neighboring gentry, major and minor, were invited; and it was certainly an occasion when a prospective master and mistress of Abbott's and King's Topping might see their future glory in an agreeable light, as a picturesque provincial supremacy with a rent-roll personified by the most prosperous-looking tenants. Sir Hugo expected Grandcourt to feel flattered by being asked to the Abbey at a time which included this festival in honor of the family estate; but he also hoped that his own hale appearance might impress his successor with the probable length of time that would elapse before the succession came, and with the wisdom of preferring a good actual sum to a minor property that must be waited for. All present, down to the least important farmer's daughter, knew that they were to see "young Grandcourt," Sir Hugo's nephew, the presumptive heir and future baronet, now visiting the Abbey with his bride after an absence of many years; any coolness between uncle and nephew having, it is understood, given way to a friendly warmth. The bride opening the ball with Sir Hugo was necessarily the cynosure of all eyes; and less than a year before, if some magic mirror could have shown Gwendolen her actual position, she would have imagined herself moving in it with a glow of triumphant pleasure, conscious that she held in her hands a life full of favorable chances which her cleverness and spirit would enable her to make the best of. And now she was wondering that she could get so little joy out of the exultation to which she had been suddenly lifted, away from the distasteful petty empire of her girlhood with its irksome lack of distinction and superfluity of sisters. She would have been glad to be even unreasonably elated, and to forget everything but the flattery of the moment; but she was like one courting sleep, in whom thoughts insist like willful tormentors.

It was always a beautiful scene, this dance on New Year's Eve, which had been kept up by family tradition. Red carpet was laid down for the occasion: hot-house plants and evergreens were arranged in every recess of the gallery; and the old portraits made a piquant line of spectators. Some neighbouring gentry were invited; and Sir Hugo expected Grandcourt to feel flattered by being asked to the Abbey at a time which included this festival. All present knew that they were to see "young Grandcourt," Sir Hugo's nephew, the presumptive heir, now visiting the Abbey with his bride; and Gwendolen, opening the ball with Sir Hugo, was necessarily the focus of all eyes.
A year before, if some magic mirror could have shown Gwendolen her position, she would have imagined herself in a glow of triumphant pleasure, ready to make the best of her cleverness and spirit in her new life. And now she was wondering that she could get so little joy out of her exalted state, above the petty empire of her girlhood with its irksome lack of distinction and superfluity of sisters.
