“One--two--three--four--five, you are right,” said Mr. Beresford. “The plainest of the lot must be staying in Wales with a maiden aunt who has a lot of money to leave. The old lady isn't so ill that they can't give the ball, but just ill enough so that she may make her will wrong if left alone; poor girl, to be plain, and then to miss such a ball as this,--hello! the first guest! He is on time to be sure; I hate to be first, don't you?” The first guest was a strikingly handsome fellow, irreproachably dressed and unmistakably nervous. “He is afraid he is too early!” “He is afraid that if he waits he'll be too late!” “He doesn't want the driver to stop directly in front of the door.” “He has something beside him on the seat of the hansom.” “The tissue paper has blown off: it is flowers.” “It is a piece! Jove, this IS a rum ball!” “What IS the thing? No wonder he doesn't drive up to the door and go in with it!” “It is a HARP, as sure as I am alive!” Then electrically from Francesca, “It is Patricia's Irish lover! I forget his name.” “Rory!” “Shamus!” “Michael!” “Patrick!” “Terence!” “Hush!” she exclaimed at this chorus of Hibernian Christian names, “it is Patricia's undeclared impecunious lover. He is afraid that she won't know his gift is a harp, and afraid that the other girls will. He feared to send it, lest one of the sisters or h'orphan nieces should get it; it is frightful to love one of six, and the cards are always slipping off, and the wrong girl is always receiving your love-token or your offer of marriage.” “And if it is an offer, and the wrong woman gets it, she always accepts, somehow,” said Mr. Beresford; “It's only the right one who declines!” and here he certainly looked at me pointedly. “He hoped to arrive before any one else,” Francesca went on, “and put the harp in a nice place, and lead Patricia up to it, and make her wonder who sent it. Now poor dear (yes, his name is sure to be Terence), he is too late, and I am sure he will leave it in the hansom, he will be so embarrassed.” And so he did, but alas! the driver came back with it in an instant, the butler ran down the long path of crimson carpet that covered the sidewalk, the first footman assisted, the second footman pursued Terence and caught him on the staircase, and he descended reluctantly, only to receive the harp in his arms and send a tip to the cabman, whom of course he was cursing in his heart. “I can't think why he should give her a harp,” mused Bertie Godolphin. “Such a rum thing, a harp, isn't it? It's too heavy for her to 'tote,' as you say in the States.” “Yes, we always say 'tote,' particularly in the North,” I replied; “but perhaps it is Patricia's favourite instrument. Perhaps Terence first saw her at the harp, and loved her from the moment he heard her sing the 'Minstrel Boy' and the 'Meeting of the Waters.'”