Although her father still called her a girl, Bridie was thirty-six. She was tall and strong; the skin of her fingers and her palms were stained, and harsh to touch. The labour they'd experienced had found its way into them, as though juices had come out of vegetation and pigment out of soil; since childhood she'd torn away the rough scotch grass that grew each spring among her father's mangolds and sugar beet; since childhood she'd harvested potatoes in August, her hands daily rooting in the ground she loosened and turned. Wind had toughened the flesh of her face, sun had browned it; her neck and nose were lean, her lips touched with early wrinkles. But on Saturday nights Bridie forgot the scotch grass and the soil. In different dresses she cycled to the dance-hall, encouraged to make the journey by her father. "Doesn't it do you good, girl?" he'd say, as though he imagined she begrudged herself the pleasure. "Why wouldn't you enjoy yourself?" She'd cook him his tea and then he'd settle down with the wireless, or maybe a Wild West novel. In time, while still she danced, he'd stoke the fire up and hobble his way upstairs to bed. The dance-hall, owned by Mr. Justin Dwyer, was miles from anywhere, a long building by the roadside with treeless boglands all around and a gravel expanse in front of it. On pink pebbled cement its title was painted in an azure blue that matched the depth of the background shade yet stood out well, unfussily proclaiming "The Ballroom of Romance." Above these letters four coloured bulbs -- in red, green, orange and mauve -- were lit at appropriate times, an indication that the evening rendezvous was open for business. Only the facade of the building was pink, the other walls being a more ordinary grey. And inside, except for pink swing-doors, everything was blue. -- William Trevor, from "The Ballroom of Romance and Other Stories," 1972. (I believe the dance hall was located in Co. Leitrim).