Read it through once

Miss Mitford was now in her twenty-second year and was, doubtless, being quizzed by mamma as to the state of her heart. The matter does not appear to have been a subject for serious contemplation with her; indeed the question of love she appears to have regarded with something like amused contempt. What she describes as “a most magnificent entertainment” was a ball at Mr. Brett’s, at Brompton, to which she was invited, following a sumptuous repast at another house. The ball was most impressive. “There were five splendid rooms open in a suite, and upwards of three hundred people. The supper was most elegant; every delicacy of the season was in profusion; and the chalked floors and Grecian lamps gave it the appearance of a fairy scene, which was still further heightened by the beautiful exotics which almost lined these beautiful apartments,” all of which, they were told, had come from Mr. Brett’s own hot-house and conservatory. Her partners were numerous, handsome, and also “elegant,” but “I do assure you, dear mamma, I am still heart-whole; and I do not think I am in much danger from the attractions of Bertram Mitford”—her cousin, and a young man upon whom both the Doctor and Mrs. Mitford looked with considerable favour as a probable and very desirable son-in-law.[16]