Elizabeth Anne Fitzgerald stared at the novel in her hands but not a single word made sense. In fact, the letters on the page were blurred as badly as if were not wearing her reading glasses. Perhaps it was best, for Mama hated it when she read at the table. Lizzie  closed the book. She was so excited about tomorrow she would never be able to concentrate, she decided.

Excited, and yet afraid.
Papa sat at the head of the small table with a copy of yesterday’s Dublin Times. He rattled the page as he reached for his cup of tea, engrossed in some article about war. Upstairs, the household was in a state of hysteria. Lizzie could hear her two older sisters and her mother racing about the bedrooms, back and forth, heels clicking wildly, just as she could hear Anne’s wails and Georgie’s  brisk, sensible tones. Mama was barking orders like a soldier. Papa didn't seem to notice a thing , as for this was common in the Fitzgerald house.
Beneath the table, a stray, crippled cat she had rescued and adopted the year before rubbed against her ankles, purring. The cat’s name was Stella. She is about four years old and she saved her from a flood.
The reason Lizzie was so excited but afraid was because she turned sixteen and she was going to attend her first ball. It was not just any ball though. It was a masquerade ball.  It was going to be at the Earl's house. The Earl is the king that is above everyone else.
She stared at Papa hoping he would look up but he didn’t. Instead he said “Lizzie you are staring.”
In a shaky voice she said “I am sorry Papa it's just that I am nervous about tomorrow.”
He responded “Lizzie you have to go, sure it is your first, but it is not going to be the last.” That night she slept on what he said and she realized that he was right she would have to go to a lot of more balls in her life so why not get use to it now.
After trying the dress on again that morning and she realized that she was not as beautiful as her other sisters. Then she did not want to go again. When Georgie came  in she was not dressed, she was concerned “Lizzie why are you not ready we are going to be late.”
“I'm not going,” she said in a low voice.
Gorgie exclaimed “what do you mean, you're going and that is that!”
“Fine but I still need my hair and makeup done,” she said a little cheered up.
After Lizzie's sisters helped her get ready they were on there way. When they arrived they told Lizzie just to talk. That, that is all she had to do but she was very shy so that was going to be hard to do. When they got in a soyer tried to talk to Lizzie but she did not notice and walked on.
Her sisters left her so she was all alone. After a while a guy started walking toward her in a panic she left the room because she recognized who it was, her guy she had secretly admired her whole life. He found her and told her to meet him in the gardens in ten minutes.
When she went she found him sitting. Instantly he got up and said “you and your family can live here and have lots of money.”
“What is the catch of it.”
“There is no catch.”
She talked to her family she said “he is offering us to live with them he did not say why though.”Her family decided to move in and they never had trouble with money again. They were also happy living there.