CHAPTER XIII.
THE FANCY BALL.
The best cure for anxiety, short of removing it altogether, is plenty of work. Molly came down from her interview with Jane Macalister with a sickening sense of coming disaster filling her heart. Hers was not a particularly hopeful nature. By nature she was inclined to look at the dark side rather than at the bright. She had plenty of courage and was unselfish to a fault; but when she arrived in the hall now and found all the rest of the children gathered round Hester and was greeted by peals of excited laughter and shouts of excited joy, she would have given a great deal to have been able to run away and hide herself.
This was impossible, however; she was dragged into the eager group of children, and was obliged not only to listen to their remarks, but to make suggestions of her own. In the absence of Mr. and Mrs. Lorrimer, Molly had to decide whether the ball-room could be used or not. She would have given the world to say no, but scarcely dared to do this with all those eager delighted faces gazing at her.
"I am sure mother will consent," she said after a pause. "I will write to her to-day and ask her; but I think we may act as if her consent were already given. Now, shall we come to the ball-room and see what is necessary to be done?"
"Oh, what a darling Molly you are," exclaimed all the other Lorrimers in a breath. She found herself whirled in their midst to the old ball-room, and the rest of the morning was spent in eager and animated discussion.
This magnificent old room was apart from the rest of the house. It was entered by a covered way from one of the drawing-rooms; but this entrance had long been closed, and the room itself—since the family purse had become so low—was only made use of as a play-room for the children in wet weather, and as a place for all kinds of lumber and rubbish. Hester and Molly were neither of them artistic in their tastes or ideas, but they were intensely practical in all they said and did. Molly proposed that the room should be first cleared out and thoroughly cleaned, and that early on the following morning Annie Forest should come and see it. The room was lit by seven tall Gothic windows, and had a high arched roof of oak. Round the windows the thick ivy which only years can produce hung in heavy masses. Some of this must be cleared away, and some light draperies must relieve the dark tone of the walls. The gallery was pronounced sufficiently sound for the band to stand there, and Annie's original idea of placing Nora in the gallery as a sort of queen of the ceremonies was superseded by a better one. She was to have a special throne made for her at the other end of the ball-room. There she would not only see perfectly, but would also be seen. It seemed simple enough to have a ball in such a lovely room, and Hester arranged to send some men over that very afternoon to begin the work of clearing out the rubbish.
"We don't wish to take possession of the Towers," she said. "We only want the loan of the ball-room, and of this delightful lawn just beyond, where we can put up a marquee or tent."
"No, no," exclaimed Molly, "it must be all or nothing. You know how big our entrance hall is, Hester, and those great half-empty drawing rooms. The whole ground floor is to be at your disposal. If we do it at all, let it be a real merry-making. It will be nice to have a merry-making once again at the Towers."
Molly sighed as she spoke. Hester glanced at her, and the remark in her father's letter flashed through her brain.