midnight
The Barclay private car had brought a dozen girls down from the state university for the Christmas holidays , and then had made a recruiting trip as far east as Cleveland and had brought back a score more of girls in their teens and early twenties -- for an invitation from the Barclays , if not of much social consequence , had a power behind it that every father recognized . And what with threescore girls from the Ridge , and young men from half a dozen neighbouring states , -- and young men are merely background in any social picture , -- the ballroom was as pretty as a garden . It was her own idea , -- with perhaps a shade of suggestion from her father , -- that the old century should be danced out and the new one danced in with the pioneers of Garrison County set in quadrilles in the centre of the floor , while the young people whirled around them in the two-step then in vogue . So the Barclays asked a score or so of the old people in for dinner New Year 's Eve ; and they kept below stairs until midnight . Then they filed into the ballroom , with its fair fresh faces , its shrill treble note of merriment , -- these old men and women , gray and faded , looking back on the old century while the others looked into the new one . There came Mr. and Mrs. Watts McHurdie in the lead , Watts in his best brown suit , and Mrs. Watts in lavender to sustain her gray hair ; General Ward , in his straight black frock coat and white tie , followed with Mrs. Dorman , relict of the late William Dorman , merchant , on his arm ; behind him came the Brownwells , in evening clothes , and Robert Hendricks and his sister , -- all gray-haired , but straight of figure and firm of foot ; Colonel Culpepper followed with Mrs. Mary Barclay ; the Lycurgus Masons were next in the file , and in their evening clothes they looked withered and old , and Lycurgus was not sure upon his feet ; Jacob Dolan in his faded blue uniform marched in like a drum-major with the eldest Miss Ward ; and the Carnines followed , and the Fernalds followed them ; and then came Judge and Mrs. Bemis -- he a gaunt , sinister , parchment-skinned man , with white hair and a gray mustache , and she a crumbling ruin in shiny satin bedecked in diamonds . Down the length of the long room they walked , and executed an old-fashioned grand march , such as Watts could lead , while the orchestra played the tune that brought cheers from the company , and the little old man looked at the floor , while Mrs. McHurdie beamed and bowed and smiled .