CHAPTER VIII.
A SUCCESS.
On Friday all was bustle and preparation for the entertainment which was to take place on the next day. Minnie was everywhere at once, and yet was in constant request.
The girls had begged and been granted a holiday that their preparations might be as complete as possible, and their unfailing allies—the children of Hollowmell—were at hand to render them every possible sort of help.
Next morning Minnie was flying round, "more like a bird than a human being," as her father observed. She had to see that the prizes—of which there were a considerable number to be distributed—were carried down to the hall, and innumerable other things about which she was in a fever of excitement.
The dinner was ordered for half-past two precisely, and by that hour everybody had arrived.
It was a goodly sight in Minnie's eyes to see them come in—the miners and their wives and children—all looking clean and respectable, and many of them even looking very well-dressed, as indeed they could all well afford to be, if they had not been in the habit of taking their earnings to the public-house in preference to any other place.
Pat Malone was there and all his children, accompanied by Molly Gray, who had been promoted to the dignity of his housekeeper since the death of his wife.
In the morning Minnie had informed her father of the expected presence of some of the young ladies' parents and friends, and Mr. Kimberly suggested the propriety of inviting these to dinner in his own house, at a later hour. This proposal, however, was met by Minnie with decided disapproval, who requested instead that they should be invited to sit down with the company.
"I don't wish the people to think they are a show," she declared, "and that all this is merely for the amusement of us and our friends—they must either dine with my people or stay out of the hall till dinner is over."