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.
