3-039-006 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Missing Partner, 1871. 'It is not an unlikely incident that a lady who has consented to set down upon her engagement card or ivory tablets a very long list of gentlemen, promised the honour of dancing with her in the course of the evening, should feel so much fatigued, when the turn of one she does not much like has arrived, that she must quietly slip into the conservatory, and there sit down to rest. Nor does it seem very improbable that she should be followed to this retreat by another, who is her professed admirer, and who may have some reason to think himself more acceptable to her than the man inscribed next upon her dancing list...The gentleman who looks about, meanwhile, in search of his missing partner, is no doubt a worthy sort of person, but inclined to take a too serious view of the business of this night...She will presently be detected in her quiet recess, and inexorably summoned to pace through the tedious quadrille with him whom she cares for least. With a sigh but half-disguised as a yawn of drowsy indifference she will resign herself to this ordeal of patience, in hopes of another opportunity for more agreeable conversation, before the time of her departure'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.