I have little time to say more now, for I 'm called down to see the flowerpots and orange-trees that's to line the hall and the stairs; but I 'll try and finish this by post hour.
As I see that this cannot be despatched to-day, I 'll keep it over, to give you a "full and true" account of the ball, which Lord George assures me will be the greatest _fête_ Brussels has seen this winter; and, indeed, if I am to judge from the preparations, I can well believe him! There are seven men cooks in the kitchen making paste and drinking sherry in a way that's quite incredible, not to speak of an elderly man in my own room that's doing the M'Carthy arms in spun-sugar for a temple that is to represent Dodsborough, in the middle of the table, with K. I. on the top of it, holding a flag, and crying out something in French that means welcome to the company. Poor K. I., 'tis something else he's thinking of all the time!
Then, the whole stairs and the landing is all one bower of camellias and roses and lilies of the valley, brought all the way from Holland for another ball, but, by Lord George's ingenuity, obtained by us. As for ice, Molly, you 'd think my dressing-room was a Panorama of the North Pole; and there's every beast of that region done in strawberries or lemon, with native creatures, the color of life, in coffee or chocolate. The music will be the great German Brass Band, fifty-eight performers, and two Blacks with cymbals. They 're practising now, and the noise is dreadful! Carts are coming in every moment with various kinds of eatables, for I must tell you, Molly, they don't do things here the way we used at Dodsborough. Plenty of cold roast chickens, tongues, and sliced ham, apple-pies, tarts, jelly, and Spanish flummery, with Naples biscuits and a plum-cake, is a fine supper in Ireland; and if you begin with sherry, you can always finish with punch: but here there's nothing that ever was eaten they won't have. Ice when they 're hot, soup when they 're chilly, oyster patties and champagne continually during the dancing, and every delicacy under the sun afterwards on the supper-table.
There's nothing distresses me in it all but the Polka, Molly. I can't learn it. I always slide when I ought to hop, and where there 's a hop I duck down in spite of me! And whether it's the native purity of an Irishwoman, or that I never was reared to it, I can't say; but the notion of a man's arm round me keeps me in a flutter, and I 'm always looking about to see how K. I. bears it. I suppose, however, I 'll get through it well enough, for Lord George is to be my partner; and as I know K. I.'s "safe," my mind is more easy.