Dolores is a young Irish woman who moves into Mrs. Kehoe’s house after Miss Keegan leaves. Unlike the other boarders, Dolores pays part of her rent by cleaning the house. Miss McAdam and Diana dislike this, both worrying that this will tarnish the entire household’s reputation. Forging an unlikely alliance, Miss McAdam and Diana approach Eilis and implore her to join them in refusing to eat dinner with Dolores, but Eilis finds this idea elitist and cruel, so she refuses. Perhaps because of this, Mrs. Kehoe asks her to take Dolores to that week’s dance, and though she desperately wants to say no, she agrees. When she gets to the dance, though, she quickly abandons Dolores to dance with Tony for the first time, glad to have an excuse to stop spending time with Dolores.