‘Yes, it is very kind of her.’
‘Then I shall expect you to be ready to start with me for the Butterfly’s Ball. Eh, young ladies, what will you come out as?’
‘Oh daddy, daddy, is it? Has mamma asked them? Oh! it is more delicious than anything ever was. Mysie, Mysie, what will you be?’
‘The sly little dormouse crept out of his hole,’ quoted Mysie, in a very low, happy voice.
‘And I will be a jolly old frog,’ shouted Fergus, finding the ordinance of silence broken and making the most of it, on the presumption that the whole family were invited. However, the tone, rather than the uncomprehended words of his mother’s answer, ‘Nobody asked you, sir,’ she said, reduced him to silence, and it became understood, through Fly’s inquiries, that the invitation included Lady Merrifield must make her acceptance doubtful. And besides, the question which three were to go was the unspoken drawback to full bliss, and yet the delight was exceedingly great in the prospect, great enough to make the contrast of gloom in poor Dolores’s spirit all the darker, as she sat, left out of everything, and she could not now say, with absolute injustice, though she still clung to the belief that there was more misfortune than fault in her disgrace.
She crept away, shivering with unhappiness, to the schoolroom, while the others frisked off discussing the wonderful Butterfly’s Ball. Lady Merrifield looked in on her, and she hardened herself to endure either another probing or fresh reproaches, but all she heard was, ‘My dear, I cannot talk over this sad affair now, as I have to go out. But, if you can, I think you had better write to your father about it, and let him understand exactly how it happened. Or, if you had rather write than speak in explaining it to me, you can do so, and we can consider tomorrow what is to be done about it.’
Then she went out with her brother and cousin to drive to some Industrial schools which Lord Rotherwood wanted to see.
CHAPTER XV. — THE BUTTERFLY’S BALL.
Miss Mohun went to the Casement Cottages with Gillian to see what the elder Miss Hacket might wish and whether they could be of use to her; the young people being left to exercise themselves within call in case the Tree was to be continued.