It was a Lover and His Lass

by Mrs. Oliphant

Lilias jumped to her feet. She clapped her hands together with soft vehemence.

"Oh, Margaret, oh, Margaret!" she cried.

"That is exactly what I mean," the elder lady said. "I meant to have approached the subject with caution, but it's better to be bold and make a clean breast of it. That is just what it is, Margaret. You see, everybody has been very kind to Philip, yourselves included. And I want to give an entertainment, to make some little return. But I am not a millionnaire, as you know, and I'm very much out of the habit of gaieties. There is just one thing my heart is set upon, and that is to have the Lily of Murkley at Philip's ball."

There are some things that even the most judicious cannot be expected to understand, and one of them is the manner in which persons who are most important and delightful to themselves may be regarded by others. That her son was neither a hero nor a genius Mrs. Stormont was very well aware. She had said to herself long since that she had no illusions on this subject. There was nothing wonderful about him one way or another. He would no doubt turn out a respectable member of society, like his father before him. "You are very well off when you can be sure of that; plenty of women just as good as I am are trysted with fools or reprobates," Mrs. Stormont said to herself: and Philip was neither the one nor the other. If he was not devoted to his mother, he had never yet gone against her or openly opposed her decisions, and with this she had learned to be content, and even to glorify herself a little, comparing her position with that of old Lady Terregles, who had been obliged for very good reasons to leave her son's house. But, reasonable as she was, there was one natural weakness which Mrs. Stormont had not got free of. It had not occurred to her that it could be anything but a recommendation of her ball to everybody about that it was Philip's ball. To say that it was for him seemed to be the way of attracting everybody's interest. She thought, in the unconscious foolishness which accompanied so much excellent sense, that there was much less likelihood of overcoming Margaret's scruples if she had claimed Lilias for her party on the ground of her own old affection: to ask this privilege for Philip's ball was the most ingratiating way she could put it. She expected with confidence the effect this statement would have upon them. Philip's ball: not for her sake—that might not be motive enough—but to confer distinction upon Philip. Poor Mrs. Stormont! It would have been some consolation to her had she known that Philip had been the object of Margaret's chiefest alarm for a long time past. But she did not know this; and when she looked round upon the ladies and saw the blank that came over their faces, it gave her a pang such as she had not felt since the first lowering of her expectations for Philip—and that was long ago. But Lilias herself did not show any blank. The girl had begun to execute a little dance of impatience before Margaret, holding out supplicating hands.

"Oh, will you let me go? Oh, Margaret, let me go! I will be an old woman before you let me see a dance. Oh, just this once, Margaret! Oh, Jean, why don't you speak? Even if I am to go to Court, the Queen will never know. And besides, do you think she would take the trouble to find out whether the girls that are present had ever been at a dance before? Do you think the Queen has the time for that? And she's far too kind, besides. Margaret, oh! will you let me go?"

Lilias, it is needless to say, being Scotch, was not skilled in the management of her wills and shalls; but there were no critical ears in the little company to find her out.

"I will be sixty before I ever see a dance, and what will I care for it then?" she added, sinking into plaintive tones.

But Margaret sat behind without saying a word. It is needless to add that Miss Jean had already put on a look as suppliant as that of the petitioner herself; instead of backing up her stronger sister, she went over to the side of youth without a struggle. But Margaret sat in her big easy-chair, with her feet elevated upon a high footstool—a type of the inexorable. And, as so often happens, it was upon the innocent one of the three, she who could derive no benefit from any yielding, that she turned her thunder.

"Jean," she cried, "I wonder at you! How often have we consulted upon this, and made up our minds it was best for the child to keep steady to her lessons till the time and the way that we had fixed upon for the best? Has anything happened to change that? I am not aware of it. Every circumstance is just the same; but you pull at my sleeve and you cast eyes at me as if I was a tyrant not to change at the first word. I understand Lilias, that is but a child, and thinks of nothing but diversion; but I am surprised at you!"

"Oh! Margaret," Jean said, but she did not venture on anything more.