"Have a rose, grandpapa?" says Molly, stooping still farther over the iron railings, her voice sweet and fresh as the dead and gone Eleanor's. As she speaks she drops the flower, and he dexterously, by some fortuitous chance, catches it.
"Well done!" cries she, with a gay laugh, clapping her hands, feeling half surprised, wholly amused, at his nimbleness. "Yet stay, grandpapa, do not go so soon. I—have a favor to ask of you."
"Well?"
"We have been discussing something delightful for the past five minutes,—something downright delicious; but we can do nothing without you. Will you help us, grandpapa? will you?" She asks all this with the prettiest grace, gazing down undaunted into the sour old face raised to hers.
"Why are you spokeswoman?" demands he, in a tone that makes the deeply attentive Cecil within groan aloud.
"Well—because—I really don't believe I know why, except that I chose to be so. But grant me this, my first request. Ah! do, now, grandpapa."
The sweet coaxing of the Irish "Ah!" penetrates even this withered old heart.
"What is this wonderful thing you would have me do?" asks he, some of the accumulated verjuice of years disappearing from his face; while Lady Stafford, from behind the curtain, looks on trembling with fear for the success of her scheme, and Marcia listens and watches with envious rage.
"We want you to—give a ball," says Molly, boldly, with a little gasp, keeping her large eyes fixed in eager anxiety upon his face, while her pretty parted lips seem still to entreat. "Say 'yes' to me, grandpapa."
How to refuse so tender a pleading? How bring the blank that a "No" must cause upon her riante, lovely face?