stiff black silk over her comfortable shoulders; you can almost hear her creak in it!”
B.G. “My eye! but she’s one to keep the goody-pot open for the youngsters! She’ll be the belle of the ball so far as I’m concerned.”
Fran. “It’s impossible to tell whether it’s the butler or paterfamilias. Yes, it’s the butler, for he has taken off his coat and is looking at the flowers with the florist’s assistant.”
B.G. “And the florist’s assistant is getting slated like one o’clock! The butler doesn’t like the rum design over the piano; no more do I. Whatever is the matter with them now?”
They were standing with their faces towards us, gesticulating wildly about something on the front wall of the drawing-room; a place quite hidden from our view. They could not decide the matter, although the butler intimated that it would quite ruin the ball, while the assistant mopped his brow and threw all the blame on somebody else. Nurse came in, and hated whatever it was the moment her eye fell on it. She couldn’t think how anybody could abide it, and was of the opinion that his ludship would have it down as soon as he arrived.
Our attention was now distracted by the fact that his ludship did arrive. It was ten o’clock, but barely dark enough yet to make the lanterns effective, although they had just been lighted.
There were two private carriages and two four-wheelers, from which paterfamilias and one other gentleman alighted, followed by a small feminine delegation.
“One young chap to brace up the gov’nor,” said Bertie Godolphin. “Then the eldest daughter is engaged to be married; that’s right; only three daughters and two h’orphan nieces to work off now!”
As the girls scampered in, hidden by their long cloaks, we could not even discover the two we already knew. While they were divesting themselves of their wraps in an upper chamber, Nurse hovering over them with maternal solicitude, we were anxiously awaiting their criticisms of our preparations.
Chapter XII.
Patricia Makes Her Debut
For three days we had been overseeing the details. Would they approve the result? Would they think the grand piano in the proper corner? Were the garlands hung too low? Was the balcony scheme effective? Was our menu for the supper satisfactory? Were there too many lanterns? Lord and Lady Brighthelmston had superintended so little, and we so much, that we felt personally responsible.
Now came musicians with their instruments. The butler sent four melancholy Spanish students to the balcony, where they began to tune mandolins and guitars, while an Hungarian band took up its position, we conjectured, on some extension or balcony in the rear, the existence of which we had not guessed until we heard the music later. Then the butler turned on the electric light, and the family came into the drawing-rooms.
They did admire them as much as we could wish, and we, on our part, thoroughly approved of the family. We had feared it might prove dull, plain, dowdy, though wellborn, with only dear Patricia to enliven it; but it was well-dressed, merry, and had not a thought of glancing at the windows or pulling down the blinds, bless its simple heart!
The mother entered first, wearing a grey satin gown and a diamond crown that quite established her position in the great world. Then girls, and more girls: a rose-pink girl, a pale green, a lavender, a yellow, and our Patricia, in a cloud of white with a sparkle of silver, and a diamond arrow in her lustrous hair.
What an English nosegay they made, to be sure, as they stood in the back of the room while paterfamilias approached, and calling each in turn, gave her a lovely bouquet from a huge basket held by the butler.
Everybody’s flowers matched everybody’s frock to perfection; those of the h’orphan nieces were just as beautiful as those of the daughters, and it is no wonder that the English nosegay descended upon paterfamilias, bore him into the passage, and if they did not kiss him soundly, why did he come back all rosy and crumpled, smoothing his dishevelled hair, and smiling at Lady Brighthelmston? We speedily named the girls Rose, Mignonette, Violet, and Celandine, each after the colour of her frock.
“But there are only five, and there ought to be six,” whispered Salemina, as if she expected to be heard across the street.
“One—two—three—four—five, you are right,” said Mr. Beresford. “The plainest of the lot must be staying in Wales with a maiden aunt who has a lot of money to leave. The old lady isn’t so ill that they can’t give the ball, but just ill enough so that she may make her will wrong if left alone; poor girl, to be plain, and then to miss such a ball as this,—hello! the first guest! He is on time to be sure; I hate to be first, don’t you?”
The first guest was a strikingly handsome fellow, irreproachably dressed and unmistakably nervous.
“He is afraid he is too early!”
“He is afraid that if he waits he’ll be too late!”
“He doesn’t want the driver to stop directly in front of the door.”
“He has something beside him on the seat of the hansom.”
“The tissue paper has blown off: it is flowers.”
“It is a piece! Jove, this IS a rum ball!”
“What IS the thing? No wonder he doesn’t drive up to the door and go in with it!”
“It is a HARP, as sure as I am alive!”
Then electrically from Francesca, “It is Patricia’s Irish lover! I forget his name.”
“Rory!”
“Shamus!”
“Michael!”
“Patrick!”
“Terence!”
“Hush!” she exclaimed at this chorus of Hibernian Christian names, “it is Patricia’s undeclared impecunious lover. He is afraid that she won’t know his gift is a harp, and afraid that the other girls will. He feared to send it, lest one of the sisters or h’orphan nieces should get it; it is frightful to love one of six, and the cards are always slipping off, and the wrong girl is always receiving your love-token or your offer of marriage.”
“And if it is an offer, and the wrong woman gets it, she always accepts, somehow,” said Mr. Beresford; “It’s only the right one who declines!” and here he certainly looked at me pointedly.
“He hoped to arrive before any one else,” Francesca went on, “and put the harp in a nice place, and lead Patricia up to it, and make her wonder who sent it. Now poor dear (yes, his name is sure to be Terence), he is too late, and I am sure he will leave it in the hansom, he will be so embarrassed.”
And so he did, but alas! the driver came back with it in an instant, the butler ran down the long path of crimson carpet that covered the sidewalk, the first footman assisted, the second footman pursued Terence and caught him on the staircase, and he descended reluctantly, only to receive the harp in his arms and send a tip
