"How is it that you are not dancing, Kate? Will you allow me to lead you out?"
"I would, Tom, with the greatest possible pleasure; but I heard the Rathcash boys were to dance with the Shanvilla girls, and so by the others with the Rathcash girls."
"That's the old story, Kate. It was thrown up to me just now; but there is no such restriction upon any of us at either side. And I'll tell you what it is, Kate Mulvey—not a Shanvilla girl I'll dance with this day, if I never struck a foot under me!"
Kate was not sorry to find him in this humor. If she could soothe round his feelings on her own account now, all would be right. Under any phase of beauty, Kate's expression of countenance was more amiable than Winny Cavana's, although perhaps not so regularly handsome, and she felt that she was now looking her best.
"Fie, fie, Tom; you should not let that little accident put you through other like that, to be making you angry. I heard that was the rule, and I refused a couple of the Rathcash boys. But if you tell me there is no such rule, sure I'll go out with you, Tom, afore any man in the parish."
"Thank you, Kate; and if you wish to know the truth, there's not a girl in Rathcash, or Shanvilla either, that I'd so soon dance with."
"Ah,na bocklish, Tom; you'll hardly make me b'lieve that."
"Time will tell, Kate dear," said he, and he led her to the ring.
Kate made herself as agreeable as possible; amiable she always was. She rallied her partner upon his ill-humor. "It is a great shame for you, Tom," she said, "to let trifles annoy you—"
"They are not trifles, Kate."