Ball

Southampton

Meg pulled up to the large estate in her uncle’s motor coach, which he insisted on driving himself despite her mother’s embarrassment at having Mr. Bitterly sit beside him in the front seat as if the auto was his, and stared at all of the finely dressed people.

She had never been to a ball before, but now that she was fifteen, she would be allowed to attend, though there were certain rules she had to follow as she had not yet had her own coming out party. She absently wondered what the point of that might be since she was already promised to someone, but as she took the offered hand of a young man dressed in high-fashioned servant’s clothes and made her way out of the backseat of her uncle’s prized possession, her focus was on the people, the lights, the music, and the dancing.

She could hear the musicians from outside. The house was lit so spectacularly, one might think it was daytime. Though the majority of the lighting was