Marie reached out for it eagerly, but her face fell a little.  “It is tree mont, Mr. Captain,” she ventured.

“That is all I can spare to-night, Marie,” said Carroll, quite sternly.  “That will have to answer to-night.”

Marie smiled again, eying him timidly.  “Yes, it will my dress get for the ball, Mr. Captain.”

Marie stood framed in her wild cucumber-vine, regarding the captain with her pretty ingratiation, but not another smile she got.  Carroll strolled around to the front of the house, and in a second the carriage rolled around from the stable.  Marie nodded to the coachman; there was never a man of her acquaintance but she had a pretty, artless salutation always ready for him.  She shook her ten-dollar note triumphantly at him, and laughed with delight.

“Got money,” said she.  Marie had a way of ending up her words, especially those ending in y, as if she finished them up with a kiss.  She pursed up her lips, and gave a most fascinating little nip to her vowels, which, as a rule, she sounded short.  “Money,” said she again, and the ten-dollar note fluttered like a green leaf from between the large thumb and forefinger of her coarse right hand.

The coachman laughed back in sympathy.  He was still smiling when he drove up beside his employer at the front-door.  He leaned from his seat just as the flutter of the ladies’ dresses appeared at the front-door, and said something to Carroll, with a look of pleased expectation.  That money in Marie’s hand had cheered him on his own account.

Carroll looked at him gently imperturbable.  “I am sorry, Martin.  I shall be obliged to ask you to wait a few days,” he said, with the utmost courtesy.

The man’s honest, confident face fell.  “You said—­” he began.

“What did I say?” Carroll asked, calmly.

“You said you would let me have some to-night.”

“Yes, I remember,” Carroll said, “but I have had an unexpected demand since I returned from the City, and it has taken every cent of ready money.  I must ask you to wait a few days longer.  You are not in serious need of anything, Martin?”

“No, sir,” said the man, hesitatingly.

“I was going to say that if you were needing any little thing you might make use of my credit,” said Carroll.  As the ladies, Mrs. Carroll and Miss Carroll, came up to the carriage, Carroll thrust his hand in his pocket and drew forth a couple of cigars, which he handed to the coachman with a winning expression.  “Here are a couple of cigars for you, Martin,” he said.

“Thank you, sir,” replied the coachman.

He put the cigars in his pocket and took up the lines.  As he drove down the drive and along the shady Banbridge road he was wondering hard if Marie had got the money which Carroll had intended to pay him.  He did not mind so much if she had it.  Marie was Hungarian, and Martin had not much use for outlandish folk on general principles, but he had a sneaking admiration for little Marie.  “Now she can go to her ball,” thought he.  Marie said the word as if it had one l and a short a—­bal.  Martin smiled inwardly at the recollection, though he did not allow his face of important dignity to relax.