The De Lancey mansion, then one of the most famous houses in New York, was on the Bloomingdale Road, and the drive out Bowery Lane ran through meadow-land and green trees in summer, but over hard-packed snow and ice in winter, for it was part of the highroad to Albany.  So both Grandma Effingham and Clarissa ordered the fur muffs and hot-water bottles for the feet placed carefully in the sleigh, which Pompey brought to the door just as the night watch went down the street, crying in his slow, bell-like tones, “Eight o’clock, and all’s w-e-ll!” Betty, standing muffled in long cloak and fur hood, on the steps of the house, said to herself, with a thrill of excitement, “All’s well; please God I may say as much when midnight sounds to-night.”

The sleigh was a large, roomy one, with back and front seats, and its big hood was drawn up and extended like a roof over the top, covering the heads of its occupants, but open at the sides.  Clarissa was seated first, and well wrapped in the bearskin robes which adorned the sleigh, and then Betty tripped lightly down to have her little feet bestowed in a capacious foot-muff, as she carefully tucked her new gown around her and sat beside Clarissa.  Gulian, in full evening dress, with small clothes, plum-colored satin coat and cocked hat, took possession of the front seat.  Pompey cracked his whip, and the spirited horses were off with a plunge and bound, as Peter, the irrepressible, shouted from the doorway, where with grandma he had been an interested spectator of proceedings, “A Happy New Year to us all, and mind, Betty, you only take the handsomest gallants for partners.”  De Lancey Place had been the scene of many festivities, and was famed far and wide for its hospitality, but (it was whispered) this New Year ball was to excel all others.  The mansion stood in the centre of beautiful meadow-land, with a background of dark pines, and these showed forth finely against the snow which covered the lawns and feathered the branches of the tall oak-trees in front of the door.  Lanterns gleamed here and there, up the drive and across the wide piazza; at the door were the colored servants, in livery imported direct from England, and from within came sounds of music.  As Pompey swept his horses up to the step with an extra flourish of his whip, a group of British officers, who had just alighted from another sleigh, hastened to meet Clarissa and assist her descent.

“On my word, Clarissa,” said Gulian, a few minutes later, as he offered her his hand to conduct her to the ballroom, “I never saw Betty look so lovely.  Your pink brocade becomes her mightily, and her slender shape shows forth charmingly.  Where did you procure those knots of rose-colored ribbon which adorn the waist?  I do not remember them.”

“That is my secret—­and Betty’s; she vowed the gown would not be complete without them, so I indulged the child, and I find her taste in dress perfect.  Captain Sir John Faulkner seems greatly taken with her, does be not?”