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1Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet. Hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little
2pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall-door bell clanged
3again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest. It was well for her she had not to attend
4to the ladies also. But Miss Kate and Miss Julia had thought of that and had converted the bathroom upstairs into a
5ladies' dressing-room. Miss Kate and Miss Julia were there, gossiping and laughing and fussing, walking after each other
6to the head of the stairs, peering down over the banisters and calling down to Lily to ask her who had come. It was
7always a great affair, the Misses Morkan's annual dance. Everybody who knew them came to it, members of the family, old
8friends of the family, the members of Julia's choir, any of Kate's pupils that were grown up enough, and even some of
9Mary Jane's pupils too. Never once had it fallen flat. For years and years it had gone off in splendid style as long as
10anyone could remember; ever since Kate and Julia, after the death of their brother Pat, had left the house in Stoney
11Batter and taken Mary Jane, their only niece, to live with them in the dark gaunt house on Usher's Island, the upper
12part of which they had rented from Mr Fulham, the corn-factor on the ground floor. That was a good thirty years ago if
13it was a day. Mary Jane, who was then a little girl in short clothes, was now the main prop of the household, for she
14had the organ in Haddington Road. She had been through the Academy and gave a pupils' concert every year in the upper
15room of the Antient Concert Rooms. Many of her pupils belonged to the better-class families on the Kingstown and Dalkey
16line. Old as they were, her aunts also did their share. Julia, though she was quite grey, was still the leading soprano
17in Adam and Eve's, and Kate, being too feeble to go about much, gave music lessons to beginners on the old square piano
18in the back room. Lily, the caretaker's daughter, did housemaid's work for them. Though their life was modest they
19believed in eating well; the best of everything: diamond-bone sirloins, three-shilling tea and the best bottled stout.
20But Lily seldom made a mistake in the orders so that she got on well with her three mistresses. They were fussy, that
21was all. But the only thing they would not stand was back answers. Of course they had good reason to be fussy on such a
22night. And then it was long after ten o'clock and yet there was no sign of Gabriel and his wife. Besides they were
23dreadfully afraid that Freddy Malins might turn up screwed. They would not wish for worlds that any of Mary Jane's
24pupils should see him under the influence; and when he was like that it was sometimes very hard to manage him. Freddy
25Malins always came late but they wondered what could be keeping Gabriel: and that was what brought them every two
26minutes to the banisters to ask Lily had Gabriel or Freddy come. "O, Mr Conroy," said Lily to Gabriel when she opened
27the door for him, "Miss Kate and Miss Julia thought you were never coming. Good-night, Mrs Conroy." "I'll engage they
28did," said Gabriel, "but they forget that my wife here takes three mortal hours to dress herself." He stood on the mat,
29scraping the snow from his goloshes, while Lily led his wife to the foot of the stairs and called out: "Miss Kate,
30here's Mrs Conroy." Kate and Julia came toddling down the dark stairs at once. Both of them kissed Gabriel's wife, said
31she must be perished alive and asked was Gabriel with her. "Here I am as right as the mail, Aunt Kate! Go on up. I'll
32follow," called out Gabriel from the dark. He continued scraping his feet vigorously while the three women went
33upstairs, laughing, to the ladies' dressing-room. A light fringe of snow lay like a cape on the shoulders of his
34overcoat and like toecaps on the toes of his goloshes; and, as the buttons of his overcoat slipped with a squeaking
35noise through the snow-stiffened frieze, a cold, fragrant air from out-of-doors escaped from crevices and folds. "Is it
36snowing again, Mr Conroy?" asked Lily. She had preceded him into the pantry to help him off with his overcoat. Gabriel
37smiled at the three syllables she had given his surname and glanced at her. She was a slim, growing girl, pale in
38complexion and with hay-coloured hair. The gas in the pantry made her look still paler. Gabriel had known her when she
39was a child and used to sit on the lowest step nursing a rag doll. "Yes, Lily," he answered, "and I think we're in for a
40night of it." He looked up at the pantry ceiling, which was shaking with the stamping and shuffling of feet on the floor
41above, listened for a moment to the piano and then glanced at the girl, who was folding his overcoat carefully at the
42end of a shelf. "Tell me, Lily," he said in a friendly tone, "do you still go to school?" "O no, sir," she answered.
43"I'm done schooling this year and more." "O, then," said Gabriel gaily, "I suppose we'll be going to your wedding one of
44these fine days with your young man, eh?" The girl glanced back at him over her shoulder and said with great bitterness:
45"The men that is now is only all palaver and what they can get out of you." Gabriel coloured as if he felt he had made a
46mistake and, without looking at her, kicked off his goloshes and flicked actively with his muffler at his patent-leather
47shoes. He was a stout tallish young man. The high colour of his cheeks pushed upwards even to his forehead where it
48scattered itself in a few formless patches of pale red; and on his hairless face there scintillated restlessly the
49polished lenses and the bright gilt rims of the glasses which screened his delicate and restless eyes. His glossy black
50hair was parted in the middle and brushed in a long curve behind his ears where it curled slightly beneath the groove
51left by his hat. When he had flicked lustre into his shoes he stood up and pulled his waistcoat down more tightly on his
52plump body. Then he took a coin rapidly from his pocket. "O Lily," he said, thrusting it into her hands, "it's
53Christmas-time, isn't it? Just ... here's a little...." He walked rapidly towards the door. "O no, sir!" cried the girl,
54following him. "Really, sir, I wouldn't take it." "Christmas-time! Christmas-time!" said Gabriel, almost trotting to the
55stairs and waving his hand to her in deprecation. The girl, seeing that he had gained the stairs, called out after him:
56"Well, thank you, sir." He waited outside the drawing-room door until the waltz should finish, listening to the skirts
57that swept against it and to the shuffling of feet. He was still discomposed by the girl's bitter and sudden retort. It
58had cast a gloom over him which he tried to dispel by arranging his cuffs and the bows of his tie. He then took from his
59waistcoat pocket a little paper and glanced at the headings he had made for his speech. He was undecided about the lines
60from Robert Browning for he feared they would be above the heads of his hearers. Some quotation that they would
61recognise from Shakespeare or from the Melodies would be better. The indelicate clacking of the men's heels and the
62shuffling of their soles reminded him that their grade of culture differed from his. He would only make himself
63ridiculous by quoting poetry to them which they could not understand. They would think that he was airing his superior
64education. He would fail with them just as he had failed with the girl in the pantry. He had taken up a wrong tone. His
65whole speech was a mistake from first to last, an utter failure.
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