d, glancing at the gilt clock
that stood on the high, stucco, white-painted chimney-piece, amid a
profusion of jingling glass candelabra, 'it is really half-past twelve
o'clock!'

'Gracious me! there's another evening wasted; we must really try and be
more industrious. It is too late to do anything further to-night,' said
May. 'Come on, Alice, it is time to go to bed.'

X

During the whole of the next week, until the very night of the ball, the
girls hadn't a moment they could call their own. It was impossible to
say how time went. There were so many things to think of--to remind each
other of. Nobody knew what they had done last, or what they should do
next. The principle on which the ball had been arranged was this: the
forty-five spinsters who had agreed to bear the expense, which it was
guaranteed would not exceed L3 10s. apiece, were supplied each with five
tickets to be distributed among their friends. To save money, the supper
had been provided by the Goulds and Manlys, and day after day the rich
smells of roast beef and the salt vapours of boiling hams trailed along
the passages, and ascended through the banisters of the staircases in
Beech Grove and Manly Park. Fifty chickens had been killed; presents of
woodcock and snipe were received from all sides; salmon had arrived from
Galway; cases of champagne from Dublin. As a wit said, 'Circe has
prepared a banquet and is calling us in.'

After much hesitation, a grammar-school, built by an enterprising
landlord for an inappreciative population that had declined to support
it, was selected as the most suitable location for the festivities. It
lay about a mile from the town, and this was in itself an advantage. To
the decoration of the rooms May and Fred diligently applied themselves.
Away they went every morning, the carriage filled with yards of red
cloth, branches of evergreen, oak and holly, flags and Chinese lanterns.
You see them: Fred mounted on a high ladder, May and the maid striving
to hand him a long garland which is to be hung between the windows. You
see them leaning over the counter of a hardware shop, explaining how
oblong and semicircular pieces of tin are to be provided with places for
candles (the illumination of the room had remained an unsolved problem
until ingenious Fred had hit upon this plan); you see them running up
the narrow staircases, losing themselves in the twisty passages, calling
for the housekeeper; you see them trying to