ten.”
They had decided to be at the ball by half-past ten, and Natásha had still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.
When her hair was done, Natásha, in her short petticoat from under which her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother’s dressing jacket, ran up to Sónya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother.
Turning her mother’s head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and, hurriedly kissing her gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning up the hem of her skirt.
The cause of the delay was Natásha’s skirt, which was too long. Two maids were turning up the hem and hurriedly biting off the ends of thread. A third with pins in her mouth was running about between the countess and Sónya, and a fourth held the whole of the