It was, in the first place, necessary to provide for the Mercury, because even a G.o.d cannot be sent away after the performance of such a journey without some provisions; and Edith, to tell the truth, wanted to look at the ball all round before she ventured to express an opinion to her sister and father. Her father, of course, would not go; but should he be left alone at Morony Castle to the tender mercies of Peter? and should Florian be left also without any woman's hands to take charge of him? And the b.u.t.ter, too, was on the point of coming, which was a matter of importance. But at last, having pulled off her b.u.t.ter-making ap.r.o.n and having duly patted the roll of b.u.t.ter, she went upstairs to her sister.

"Ada," she said, "here is such a letter;" and she held up the letter and the card.

"Who is it from?"

"You must guess," said Edith.

"I am bad at guessing, I cannot guess. Is it Mr. Blake of Carnlough?"

"A great deal more interesting than that."

"It can't be Captain Clayton," said Ada.

"Out of the full heart the mouth speaks. It is Captain Clayton."

"What does he say, and what is the card? Give it me. It looks like an invitation."

"Then it tells no story, because it is an invitation. It is from the officers of the West Bromwich regiment; and it asks us to a dance on the 20th of May."

"But that's not from Captain Clayton."

"Captain Clayton has written,--to me and not to you at all. You will be awfully jealous; and he says that I have twice as much courage as you."

"That's true, at any rate," said Ada, in a melancholy tone.

"Yes; and as the officers want all the girls at the ball to be at any rate as brave as themselves, that's a matter of great importance.

He has asked me to go with a pair of pistols at my belt; but he is afraid that you would not shoot anybody."

"May I not look at his letter?"

"Oh, no! That would not be at all proper. The letter is addressed to me, Miss Edith Jones. And as it has come from such a very dashing young man, and pays me particular compliments as to my courage, I don't think I shall let anybody else see it. It doesn't say anything special about beauty, which I think uncivil. If he had been writing to you, it would all have been about feminine loveliness of course."

"What nonsense you do talk, Edith."

"Well, there it is. As you will read it, you must. You'll be awfully disappointed, because there is not a word about you in it."

Then Ada read the letter. "He says he hopes we shall both come."

"Well, yes! Your existence is certainly implied in those words."

"He explains why he writes to you instead of me."

"Another actual reference to yourself, no doubt. But then he goes on to talk of my pluck."

"He says it's a little higher than mine," said Ada, who was determined to extract from the Captain's words as much good as was possible, and as little evil to herself.

"So it is; only a little higher pluck! Of course he means that I can't come near himself."

"You wouldn't pretend to?" asked Ada.

"What! to be shot at like him, and to like it. I don't know any girl that can come quite up to that. Only if one becomes quite c.o.c.k-sure, as he is, that one won't be hit, I don't see the courage."

"Oh, I do!"

"But now about this ball?" said Edith. "Here we are, lone damsels, making b.u.t.ter in our father's halls, and turning down the beds in the lady's chamber, unable to buy anything because we are boycotted, and with no money to buy it if we were not. And we can't stir out of the house lest we should be shot, and I don't suppose that such a thing as a pair of gloves is to be got anywhere."

"I've got gloves for both of us," said Ada.

"Put by for a rainy day. What a girl you are for providing for difficulties! And you've got silk stockings too, I shouldn't wonder."

"Of course I have."

"And two ball dresses, quite new?"

"Not quite new. They are those we wore at Hacketstown before the flood."

"Good gracious! How were Noah's daughters dressed? Or were they dressed at all?"

"You always turn everything into nonsense," said Ada, petulantly.

"To be told I'm to wear a dress that had touched the heart of a patriarch, and had perhaps gone well nigh to make me a patriarch's bride! But taking it for granted that the ball dresses with all their appurtenances are here, fit to win the heart of a modern Captain instead of an old patriarch, is there no other reason why we should not go?"

"What reason?" asked Ada, in a melancholy tone.

"There are reasons. You go to papa, and see whether he has not reasons. He will tell you that every shilling should be saved for Florian's school."

"It won't take many shillings to go to Galway. We couldn't well write to Captain Clayton and tell him that we can't afford it."

"People keep those reasons in the background," said Edith, "though people understand them. And then papa will say that in our condition we ought to be ashamed to show our faces."

"What have we done amiss?"

"Not you or I perhaps," said Edith; "but poor Florian. I am determined,--and so are you,--to take Florian to our very hearts, and to forgive him as though this thing had never been done. He is to us the same darling boy, as though he had never been present at the flood gates; as though he had had no hand in bringing these evils to Morony Castle. You and I have been angry, but we have forgiven him.

To us he is as dear as ever he was. But they know in the county what it was that was done by Florian Jones, and they talk about it among themselves, and they speak of you and me as Florian's sisters. And they speak of papa as Florian's father. I think it may well be that papa should not wish us to go to this ball."

Then there came a look of disappointment over Ada's face, as though her doom had already been spoken. A ball to Ada, and especially a ball at Galway,--a coming ball,--was a promise of infinite enjoyment; but a ball with Captain Yorke Clayton would be heaven on earth. And by the way in which this invitation had come he had been secured as a partner for the evening. He could not write to them, and especially call upon them to come without doing all he could to make the evening pleasant for them. She included Edith in all these promises of pleasantness. But Edith, if the thing was to be done at all, would do it all for Ada. As for the danger in which the man pa.s.sed his life, that must be left in the hands of G.o.d. Looking at it with great seriousness, as in the midst of her joking she did look at these things, she told herself that Ada was very lovely, and that this man was certainly lovable. And she had taken it into her imagination that Captain Clayton was certainly in the road to fall in love with Ada.

Why should not Ada have her chance? And why should not the Captain have his? Why should not she have her chance of having a gallant lovable gentleman for a brother-in-law? Edith was not at all prepared to give the world up for lost, because Pat Carroll had made himself a brute, and because the neighbours were idiots and had boycotted them.

It must all depend upon their father, whether they should or should not go to the ball. And she had not thought it prudent to appear too full of hope when talking of it to Ada; but for herself she quite agreed with the Captain that policy required them to go.

"I suppose you would like it?" she said to her sister.

"I always was fond of dancing," replied Ada.

"Especially with heroes."

"Of course you laugh at me, but Captain Clayton won't be there as an officer; he's only a resident magistrate."

"He's the best of all the officers," said Edith with enthusiasm. "I won't have our hero run down. I believe him to have twice as much in him as any of the officers. He's the gallantest fellow I know. I think we ought to go, if it's only because he wants it."