Everything around her is so strikingly new and enthralling. It is Leila’s first ball, and her first exposition to society. The main character in this story is eighteen year old Leila who is attending her first ball along with her cousins. Leila is extremely excited at the prospect of the dancing and seeing all these people in their beautiful clothes. The time span is short as in so many of Mansfield’s stories. There …showed first 75 words of 2313 total…

…showed last 75 words of 2313 total…herself gliding and spinning, all the colours seem to spin into a beautiful wheel and when she bumps into the old man she does not even recognize him. Mansfield is apparently affirming that you should throw yourself completely into life's experience and not worry about what has gone or what has come. She is scornful of Leila's other partners who turn up every week and make dull statements about the floor without actually experiencing anything.