Attending the Coming Out Ball was a traditional marker of failure for Minnie. With each year that passed she looked and felt a little bit older than the girl’s that were debuting and she wondered what they saw when they looked at her: somebody who was a success in society, a well-known young lady about town who was – she had to admit – invited to essentially everything, or somebody who had failed, despite those things, to find a husband. She tried not to dwell on it too much, that way lay madness according to Emma when she had laid her fears out to her sister earlier.

Emma was usually right so Minnie had taken her other piece of advice and allowed her sister to dress her in the sort of dress a girl of eighteen would not think to wear. She looked like a proper, grown-up lady, not a girl and she did feel less out of place. She wasn’t one of them anymore, but was she ready to be left on the shelf?

Forcing herself not to be too morose she had sought out other ladies in a similar position, in no mood to hear about upcoming nuptials or expected children, and eventually found herself at the refreshment table, picking up another glass of champagne. She had danced but not with the same abandon she had once felt; now it felt a little hollow.

Laughter caught her attention, cutting through the encroaching melancholy she had no use for and she latched onto it, turning herself towards the culprit like a sunflower towards the fiery star.

"I'm sure they'll continue to be enchanting through the rest of the season," she replied with a soft smile. "We're surely owed one full season without disaster so these girls might be in luck."

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no, really MJ is just showing off at this point