"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."
"I don't want not to go," said Ada.
"I daresay not; but papa will be the difficulty."
"He'll think more of you than of me, Edith. Suppose you go and talk to him."
So it was decided; and Edith went away to her father, leaving Ada still among the beds. Of Frank not a word had been spoken. Frank would go as a matter of course if Mr. Jones consented. But Ada, though she was left among the beds, did not at once go on with her work; but sat down on that special bed by which her attention was needed, and thought of the circumstances which surrounded her. Was it a fact that she was in love with the Captain? To be in love to her was a very serious thing,—but so delightful. She had been already once,—well, not in love, but preoccupied just a little in thinking of one young man. The one young man was an officer, but was now in India, and Ada had not ventured even to mention his name in her father's presence. Edith had of course known the secret, but Edith had frowned upon it. She had said that Lieutenant Talbot was no better than a stick, although he had £400 a year of his own. "He'd give you nothing to talk about," said Edith, "but his £400 a year." Therefore when Lieutenant Talbot went to India, Ada Jones did not break her heart. But now Edith called Captain Clayton a hero, and seemed in all respects to approve of him; and Edith seemed to think that he certainly admired Ada. It was a dreadful thing to have to fall in love with a woodcock. Ada felt that if, as things went on, the woodcock should become her woodcock, the bullet which reached his heart would certainly pierce her own bosom also. But such was the way of the world. Edith had seemed to think that the man was entitled to have a lady of his own to love; and if so, Ada seemed to think that the place would be one very well suited to herself. Therefore she was anxious for the ball; and at the present moment thought only of the difficulties to be incurred by Edith in discussing the matter with her father.
"Papa, Captain Clayton wants us to go to a ball at Galway," it was thus that Edith began her task.
"Wants you to go a ball! What has Captain Clayton to do with you two?"
"Nothing on earth;—at any rate not with me. Here is his letter, which speaks for itself. He seems to think that we should show ourselves to everybody around, to let them know that we are not crushed by what such a one as Pat Carroll can do to us."
"Who says that we are crushed?"
"It is the people who are crushed that generally say so of themselves. There would be nothing unusual under ordinary circumstances in your daughters going to a ball at Galway."