The dead

Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet. hardly had she brought one gentleman into the little pantry behind the office on the ground floor and helped him off with his overcoat than the wheezy hall-door bell clanged again and she had to scamper along the bare hallway to let in another guest. it was well for her she had not to attend to the ladies also. but miss kate and miss julia had thought of that and had converted the bathroom upstairs into a ladies' dressing-room. miss kate and miss julia were there, gossiping and laughing and fussing, walking after each other to the head of the stairs, peering down over the banisters and calling down to lily to ask her who had come. it was always a great affair, the misses morkan's annual dance. everybody who knew them came to it, members of the family, old friends of the family, the members of julia's choir, any of kate's pupils that were grown up enough, and even some of mary jane's pupils too. never once had it fallen flat. for years and years it had gone off in splendid style as long as anyone could remember; ever since kate and julia, after the death of their brother pat, had left the house in stoney batter and taken mary jane, their only niece, to live with them in the dark gaunt house on usher's island, the upper part of which they had rented from mr fulham, the corn-factor on the ground floor. that was a good thirty years ago if it was a day. - taken from "the dead" written by james joyce