"Really?" Sadie was sort of relieved to hear that she wasn’t the only one who got nervous for these things. "Yes," she admitted. "I was supposed to debut last summer, but I had a riding accident, so it was delayed a year." Spilling out her sob story was probably also improper, but so far Mr. Ashford had been quite accommodating. "My aunt wanted to do a soft introduction to society this evening to see how I’m doing." She wouldn’t be allowed to receive callers or anything else just yet, but she supposed that was alright. It wasn’t as if anything was going to come out of tonight anyway.

"Does it get any easier?" Sadie had to hope it would, otherwise she would be a miserable failure. She couldn’t handle it if she always felt like this at events. Feeling like a prize on display was an uncomfortable sort of feeling, since this didn’t come naturally to her, nor did she feel like much of a catch.