"If I can I will. When I go to these things I never know whether they will lead to enjoyment or the reverse. Some little thing happens so often, and everything seems to go wrong." "They shouldn't go wrong with you, my pet." "Why not with me as well as with others?" "Because you are so beautiful to look at. You are made to be queen of a ball-room; not a London ball-room, where everything, I take it, is flash and faded, painted and stale, and worn out; but down here in the country, where there is some life among us, and where a girl may be supposed to be excited over her dancing. It is in such rooms as this that hearts are won and lost; a bid made for diamonds is all that is done in London." "I never was at a London ball," said Ada. "Nor I either; but one reads of them. I can fancy a man really caring for a girl down in Galway. Can you fancy a man caring for a girl?" "I don't know," said Ada. "For yourself, now?" "I don't think anybody will ever care much for me." "Oh, Ada, what a fib. It is all very pretty, your mock modestly, but it is so untrue. A man not love you! Why, I can fancy a man thinking that the gods could not allow him a greater grace than the privilege of taking you in his arms." "Isn't anyone to take you in his arms, then?" "No, no one. I am not a thing to be looked at in that light. I mean eventually to take to women's rights, and to make myself generally odious. Only I have promised to stick to papa, and I have got to do that first. You;--who will you stick to?" "I don't know," said Ada. "If I were to suggest Captain Yorke Clayton? If I were to suppose that he is the man who is to have the privilege?" "Don't, Edith." "He is my hero, and you are my pet, and I want to bring you two together. I want to have my share in the hero; and still to keep a share in my pet. Is not that rational?" "I don't know that there is anything rational in it all," said Ada. But still she went to bed well pleased that night. CHAPTER XXV. THE GALWAY BALL. When the 20th of May came, the three started off together for Galway, happy in spite of their boycotting. The girls at least were happy, though Frank was still somewhat sombre as he thought of the edict which Rachel O'Mahony had pronounced against him. When the boat arrived at the quay at Galway, Captain Clayton, with one of the officers of the West Bromwich, was there to meet it. "He is a wise man," whispered Edith to Ada, "he takes care to provide for number one." "I don't see that at all," said Ada.