Explore "Colin II" by E.F. Benson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A fancy-dress ball had been arranged for the last night. There were already some forty guests in the house, who, as Colin said, would form "a sort of nucleus," and a special train was coming down from town arriving at ten and going back at three in the morning, and invitations had been sent to the neighbourhood for twenty miles round, with the hope that ladies and gentlemen would be Elizabethan, but begging the ladies not to be Elizabeth. Dozens of Elizabeths, he thought, of all shapes and sizes with crumpled ruffs and jewels off crackers were bewildering, and you collided with the Queen with improbable frequency. Instead Violet was to be the sole Elizabeth present, and Dennis was to appear as her young Colin in attendance.
Colin came into the wife's room in a wonderfully good humour that morning to talk over the manner of their appearance. For several days he had scarcely had a word with her.