“Then we shall only be better paired than we were before,” retorted Paddy, “because you do not look in the least like a prince. Aunt Mary, you are lovely!” running on with eager warmth. “Oh! I should like to know what you looked like at my age.” “She was very beautiful, my dear,” said Aunt Jane proudly. “I always dressed her for balls myself.” “Oh; no, not quite that, sister,” murmured Miss Mary, in anxious self-deprecation; “just pretty, perhaps, sister, but that was all.” “No; beautiful,” asserted Miss Jane again, in a voice that allowed no contradiction. “And you the same, Aunt Jane, I expect!” said Eileen, smiling. “No, I was more like Paddy here. I knew that my chief charm lay in my expression and spirits, and so I did not worry any more than she about my appearance and clothes.” “Do I understand you to say you didn’t bother to wear clothes, Aunt Jane?” asked Jack in solemn surprise, at which the two little ladies looked horrified and Paddy and Eileen laughed, and just then the General, who had at last managed to get into his extra-special best dress suit, bustled into the room. “Jack, my boy,” he said, taking the younger man’s arm, “take my advice and don’t let yourself get stout. If you only knew what I have gone through, trying to get into these clothes!—I wonder I didn’t have a fit of apoplexy! There! I do indeed! And five years ago they fitted me perfectly. Bedad! I’m not sure now the coat won’t split all up the back before the evening is half over, and I’m afraid to see if I can sit down for fear it might result in my not being able to go to the ball at all.” “We wouldn’t go without you, daddy, anyhow,” exclaimed Paddy. “Don’t the aunties look lovely? Aren’t you just dreadfully in love with both of them? I’m sure mother will be jealous before the evening is over.” “Certainly I am; I always have been! Didn’t you know that, you minx! If they hadn’t both been so obdurate long ago all sorts of things might have happened, eh, Jane?” and the old man laughed heartily. “Do you remember boxing my ears under the mulberry tree one Sunday afternoon? Faith! you were a vixen,” and he laughed so heartily that Mrs Adair hurried forward with anxious reminders concerning his clothes. “They weren’t made to laugh in, daddy,” cried Paddy delightedly, “and I feel a little like that about mine, so we’d better keep together, and remind each other occasionally, hadn’t we?” Carriage wheels were heard then, and the roomy omnibus engaged to carry them all to the Lodge drove up to the door. The two little ladies got in first, holding their new silk dresses very high above their ankles, and carefully folding shawls all round them before they ventured to sit down, in case there was a speck of dirt on the seats. Then Mrs Adair and Eileen, whose eyes were shining already with a new happiness; and lastly Paddy and Jack hoisted the General up between them, so that there was the least possible strain upon his clothes.