“Well, how do you like me, madam?” said she to her grandmother, “and am I fine enough for the governor’s ball?”

Madam Cavendish gazed at her with that rapture of admiration in a beloved object which can almost glorify age to youth.  She called Mary to her and stroked the rich folds of her gown; she straightened a flutter of ribbon. “’Tis a fine stuff of the gown,” she said, “and blue was always my colour.  I was married in it.  ’Tis fine enough for the governor’s wife, or the queen for that matter.”  She pulled out a fold so that a long trail of silver flowers caught the light and gleamed like frost.  No misgivings and no suspicions she had, and none, by that time, had Mary, believing as she did that her sister had bought all that bravery for her, and that it was hers by right, and only troubled by the necessity of secrecy with her grandmother lest she discover for what purpose her own money had been spent.  But Catherine eyed her with such exceedingly worshipful love, admiration, and yet distress that even I pitied her.  Catherine herself that night did no discredit to her beauty, her dress being, though it was an old one, as rich as Mary’s, of her favourite green with a rose pattern broidered on the front of it, and a twist of green gauze in her fair hair, and that same necklace of green stones which she had shown me in the morning around her long throat, and her long, milky-white arms hanging at her sides in the green folds of her gown, and that pale radiance of perfection in her every feature that made many call her the pearl of Virginia, though, as I have said before, she had no lovers.  She and Mary were going to the ball, and a company of black servants with them.  As for me, balls were out of the question for a convict tutor, and I knew it, and so did they.  But suddenly, to my great amazement, Madam Cavendish turned to me:  “And wherefore are you not dressed for the ball, Master Wingfield?” she said.

I stared at her, as did also Catherine and Mary, almost as if they suspected she had gone demented.  “Madam,” I stammered, scarce thinking I had understood her rightly.

“Why are you not dressed for the ball?” she repeated.

“Madam,” I said, “pardon me, but you are well acquainted with the fact that I am not a welcome guest at the governor’s ball.”

“And wherefore?” cried she imperiously.

“Wherefore, madam?”

Mary and Catherine both looked palely at their grandmother, not knowing what had come to her.

“Madam,” I said, “do you forget?”

“I forget not that you are the eldest son and heir of one of the best families in England, and as good a gentleman as the best of them,” she cried out.  “That I do not forget, and I would have you go to the ball with my granddaughters.  Put on thy plum-coloured velvet suit, Harry, and order thy horse saddled.”

For the first time I seemed to understand that Madam Judith Cavendish had, in spite of her wonderful powers of body and mind, somewhat of the childishness of age, for as she looked at me the tears were in her stern eyes and a flush was on the ivory white of her face, and her tone had that querulousness in it which we associate with childhood which cannot have its own will.