I assured him I could scarcely stand, but when he said in a larmoyante voice, 'I have only danced once this evening, that quadrille with you,' my heart softened, and I thought I would make a great effort and try to get through one more set of Lancers my partner seemed so grateful, that the demon of vanity, or coquetry, or whatever it is that prompts one to say absurd things induced me to fish for a compliment, and to observe, 'It was not worth while taking all the trouble of riding such a distance to dance only with me, was it?' Whereupon my poor, doleful.The Seven Lives of Lady Barker Betty Gilderdale (Also available as an ebook)Ģ28 x 152mm, B&W photos & illustrations throughout

At the end of the evening, when I was feeling thoroughly done up, and could hardly stand up for fatigue, my poor friend came up and begged for another dance.

I did all I could to find partners for him, introducing him to every lady whom I knew, but it was in vain they would have been delighted to dance with him, but their cards were filled. 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. 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. Although it tells only against myself, I must make you laugh at an account of a snub I received at one of these balls. 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. '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.

Station life in new zealand lady barker