THE YOUNG O'BRIENS (continued 2)

He laughed.

"You don't look the character, anyway. And you're to go to bed."

"But—but you won't—"

"Oh, I may break the bank of England yet, who knows?" teasingly; "go to bed and dream of me, asthore."

"Is it nightmare you want me to have?"

"Race you to your room—in the dark!"

Two minutes later Miss Kezia's door opened once more. Dead silence greeted her. She went a few steps up the stairs. All doors were shut. Miss Kezia was sleepy, even more than she was cross. She went back to her bed.

As Nell laid her head on the pillow she muttered, "Of course it was that tiresome Lancaster!"

CHAPTER VI

Molly was huddled up on the hearth-rug, chin on knees, staring with her great soft eyes into the fire.

"Nell, do you think I'll be like the ugly duckling and grow pretty?"

"You're not ugly enough."

Molly sighed.

"I wish my hair curled!"

"Molly," said Nell, flinging down her pencil in despair of seeing any longer without the lamp, "your soul is full of the vanities of life. 'Be good, sweet child, and let who will be—pretty.'"

"It's so easy for pretty people to talk like that!"

"I'm bowing, Mol, I really am—only it's so dark it's lost on you."

"I've a good mind to start saying 'prunes and prisms' all day long, my mouth's so huge!"

"But it's so Irish, asthore!"

"I hate you," said Molly.

Nell stuck her elbows on the table, and her chin into her hands, and studied in her mind the painting of the old cab horse. It was such a glorious painting—there was such depth—his muscles—the veins in that leg were wonderful—in her mind. She sighed.

"Nell," in the firelight Molly blushed, "I'm going to soften Aunt Kezia's heart!"

"What? Soften her heart, is it? You'll have to soften her head first, my dear."

She began to laugh softly.

"How are you going to set about it, Mol?"

"Like they do in books. Oh, Nell," Molly's romantic soul lent enthusiasm to her tone, "you know they always do! However hard and grim and horrid she is, the niece, or whoever comes and stays with her, gradually twines herself round her heart—"

"She must be an acrobat, then," put in Nell, sotto voce.

"And alters her whole nature. You see, I'll be awfully sweet and nice—I'll do things for her. They always pick up her handkerchief and fetch her spectacles and put down her shoes to warm when she's coming in with wet feet, and things like that. You needn't laugh, Nell! It's something to do—I'll try awfully hard. I think," Molly's pretty voice trembled, "I think mother would like it."

Nell jumped up.

"All right, only don't go and put your great, noodlish heart into it, Mol! For she's not the right material, old girl!"

"I like her awfully grim and hard at first," enthusiastically. "It's a pity I'm quite so frightened of her, though. I just can't help it—she makes me shiver in my shoes!"

"Nell," from a dim corner came Sheila Pat's voice, and a squeak as she moved.

"Where are you, Atom? Yes?"

"Nell," in very judicial tones, "is it very rude to ask a person not to talk goody?"

"Rather riling, I should say."

Silence.

"Shall we light up?" said Nell, lazily.

"Nell, is it very rude to ask a person if he's afraid?"

"More than rude, Sheila Pat, downright insulting!"

"Oh!"

Pause.

"But he wasn't an Irish person," ingenuously.

"Was he English?" gravely.

"Yes."

"No one can say Englishmen are cowards, Sheila Pat. They don't understand us, but they're not cowards."

"Is it rude to ask a person if he likes his Catchykism better than cricket?"

"It's unkind, Sheila Pat."

Pause.

"Is it more unkind if he—if he is lame, Nell?"

"Miles worse. Downright mean."

After a long pause:

"May we have the lamp now? I wish to write a letter."

"Who to?" inquired Molly.

"To a 'quaintance."

Nell rose from the hearth-rug.

"Nell," the Atom pressed close and spoke in a loud whisper, "a person can't be very goody-goo if he calls you a beast and throws a piece of cake at your nose, can he?"

"Good gracious!"

"Hush!" the Atom seized her arm, almost trembling with terror of her dignity being in danger. "I didn't say my nose, Nell! Or my beast!" incoherently.

"Of course not. Where are the matches?"

Sheila Pat took a long while over that letter. Her delicate little face downbent over the sheet of paper flushed and paled several times before it was done. Her heart and her dignity fought it out again and again. At last she evolved the following:—

"DEAR MISTER STUART

"this leter coms hopin you are wel i do not bare maliss and perhaps i was not very perlit which i regret bein a lady i hop. I therefore beg to apologise and will never menson the cak or the beest but i shud dye of rag if you tel anyone of that grate indignity with kind regards your very truly Miss Sheila Patricia Kathleen O'Brien i must be honourable and ad that this spelling is not qite all my one bein helped by Miss Eileen O'Brien."

She addressed it to "mister Stuart barclay essire," and going downstairs desired Sarah to take it next door.

Sarah was forbidden to leave the house without permission, but, in face of the Atom's tremendous weightiness, she fled.

Sheila Pat returned slowly to the Stronghold, her face weary with overmuch thought. Nell was surreptitiously studying a photograph of Acushla jumping a stone wall, with herself on her back. Denis had taken it with his Goetz camera. It had been a glorious morning in early spring. She remembered the vivid blue of the sky, the wonderful golden mist that had hung over the Ballymara hills, the feeling of utter fresh joy of life that had filled her and Acushla—

"Hulloa! How quiet we are!" Denis invaded the room with cheery breeziness. "Nell, rub noses! Mine's frozen. I say, the atmosphere's too exalted altogether for me."

"Perhaps we're doing penance," she laughed. "Denis," she broke off, "whatever have you got?"

He was swinging a large square hat box to and fro.

"Catch hold!"

He swung it across to her.

"It's for you, old girl."

"For me? Give me the scissors, Molly!"

Presently she pulled from a nest of tissue paper a great soft brown felt hat, with one long brown feather drooping on the brim.

"Denis! Oh, isn't it lovely!"

"Put it on."

She put it on, and turned to him, irresistibly pink and pretty.

"But 'tis wicked, Denis! And why did you get it? And where—"

"It's lovely," exclaimed Molly, with a big sigh.

"Oh, I heard you talking to Molly about having to wear up a hat you hated with your brown suit—"

"I thought you were fathoms deep in your Latin!"

"Ah, but I wasn't. So I asked Lancaster if he could tell me of a decent hat shop, and he told me of one in Bond Street where his cousins go. You should have seen his face when I asked him whether he wasn't coming in with me! He never dreamt I was really going to get it. Don't see why, myself. 'It's full of Frenchified women!' he gasped. So it was. They were awfully sweet to me—tried on the hats, but, by Jove, what hats they were, Nell! I found this one myself. Now isn't it just the colour of your suit? Let me look at you."

He turned her round by her slim shoulders, and eyed her critically. She was adorable in it.

"I—I shall take it back, Denis. I suppose they'd give me back the money? How much was it?"

"Don't ask rude questions. And don't be a goose! They wouldn't think of taking it back."

"Oh!" her voice rose with an irrepressibly joyful lilt. "Are you sure?"

"Quite puffeckly sure. Don't I shop well, now?"

"But I could have made the old one do!" Her dimples refused to be repressed. "Denis, what a dream that feather is! And the sweep of the brim—"

"Oh, stow it, Nell! Great Scott, spare me more! I've had enough of hat-jargon to last me a lifetime. 'So chaste, isn't it? So pure—so simple—but of an elegance so chic! A poem, Monsieur, an idyll—a three-volume novel! It expresses so much! Worn so—cocked over the right ear—it is gay, insouciante, of an impudence, Monsieur! So—down in front—demure, sweet, to suit the freshness of a young demoiselle—'"

"Denis, you're making it up!"

"Oh, well, that's the sort of stuff they talked—more or less. Wish old Lancaster had come in! He's gone off to meet his governor at Paddington."

"What does he do, Denis?"

"Who, the old man? Used to sell pigs or tallow candles or something."

His eyes twinkled.

"He made his money in something like that. I forget what it was. Believe it was lamp oil!"

"That accounts for it."

"Eh? Accounts for what?"

"Oh, everything," vaguely.

"What d'you mean, Nell?"

His tone was peremptory.

"Oh, I don't know," she hedged. "But I didn't mean his father, anyway. I meant him. What does he do, Denis?"

"Nothing, apparently."

"But why isn't he at school or college or somewhere?" her voice was scornful. "Do you mean to say he just hangs around all day, and does nothing?"

"Suppose so."

"Well!" said Nell.

"Suppose he knows his own business," suggested Denis, slamming his books down on to the table. "Hadn't you better put that hat away?"

Nell walked off with the hat.

"Of all the great, lazy boobies! And he dare—he dare make Denis in a rage with me!"

"Nell!"

"Sheila Pat, I didn't see you. What are you doing?"

"Sarah told me that she always lengthened her skirts by letting down the hem. What does it mean, Nell?"

Nell explained absently.

Sheila Pat looked thoughtful.

Nell went back to the Stronghold and bent over Denis's shoulder.

"Shall I dictate for you? Are you going to practise shorthand?"

"No," grumpily.

"Denis, asthore, the hat's so lovely!"

He burst out laughing.

"You rank little duffer. Well, tell me why you were doing penance when I came in."

"We weren't. I merely suggested that perhaps we were. I meant because we've done nothing all day but get into Aunt Kezia's black books. First," she ticked off the items on her fingers, "we heard a band playing—"

"Oh, Denis," interposed Molly, "it was playing 'The Girl I left behind Me.'"

"So we rushed out, as surely anyone with feet would rush out to hear a band. It was at the corner and we rushed along and stood and listened—"

"And

"'By came a Flappyjack turning out her toes,

Forth she spurted anger like a garden hose.'

"Eh?"

"But the rest doesn't apply—

"'But the boys of Bally more had kissed the blarney stone,

Soon her anger melted—she sighed, Asthore! Ochone!'"

"Well, she sighed neither the one nor the other. Oh, she was angry! No melting of her! Next," she ticked off another finger, "we conceived, or I believe I conceived, the brilliant idea of an obstacle race on the garden walls. Oh, Denis, 'tis such fun! You see, the boughs of the trees next door and the summer house are the obstacles, and then when you try to pass each other, one is always bound to topple off. I'm bruised horribly, and Sheila Pat fell into the garden next door, and then of course Molly must needs roll off—"

"Into the dust-bin for a wager!"

"Of course; and the tin lid smashed in, and she went in after it, and yelled! And I laughed so I slipped all down the wall into the garden and scraped skin off everywhere. And Aunt Kezia came out!" She stopped with a vulgar but expressive little whistle.

"You see, Sheila Pat was in the garden next door; and halfway through Aunt Kezia's lecture her head came bobbing up! That made matters hotter than before. O dear, she has got a lot of breath to waste!"

"Why," inquired Denis, judicially, "weren't you doing your lessons?"

"We were. Those were the interludes. And oh, Denis, we've been locked into separate rooms all the afternoon till a little while ago! It was because we tried tobogganing down the stairs. We took a leaf out of the dining-room table. Aunt Kezia was out, so 'twas quite safe. It's not at all bad, only the leaf had silly little ridges, one at each end, that caught on the stairs in jerks, so we had to put it shiny side down. Molly kept getting stuck—wedged in between the balusters and the wall, and of course she did it just when we heard Aunt Kezia's key in the front door. It was such hard luck, because I'd tobogganed down once straight into Herr Schmidt (we hadn't dreamt he was at home), and he didn't mind a bit—"

"He gave such a hop that all the house shook," put in Sheila Pat, with deep enjoyment.

"Well, I banged right into his poor shins," said Nell, reflectively. "I've come to the conclusion that he's a dear old man, though he is the lodger! And he sat down rather suddenly on the hall chair. We had to flee and leave the leaf wedged," she added sorrowfully. "We hoped in vain that Aunt Kezia would turn into the dining room or kitchen or somewhere, but she didn't. Not she! She smelt that leaf! And she stumbled over it, which made it worse. And when she came to lecture us her bonnet was all crooked. Oh, she was in a temper! Here's Sarah, and tea!"

"How," she asked pathetically, later on, "can I feel good and sorry when she's scolding us with such a long nose? Her upper lip comes down and it drags her nose down with it. It's like a barometer—I can always tell how her temper is by the length of her nose!"

"You've tired the Atom out, anyway," teased Denis.

Sheila Pat was on his knee: her head had lain motionless against his shoulder for the last half hour. She sat up as if worked by a wire.

"I'm not tired, Denis O'Brien! A person has things to think about sometimes!"

"Hulloa, thought you were asleep!"

The Atom struggled to get off his knee, but he held her fast.

"Please let me go, Denis!"

"You're not angry with your one and only brother, Sheila Pat?"

"You shouldn't be sayin' rude things," she wavered. She adored Denis so deeply that she could never hold out long against him.

"It was all her fault to-day, anyway," declared Molly. "She just wouldn't settle down to anything!"

"Couldn't," murmured Nell, with a glance at Sheila Pat's great eyes.

Denis suddenly began to laugh.

"It was awful sport this afternoon! Lancaster came to the bank. Old Tellbridge and Jackson were out, and we got fooling around. I was standing on a chair spouting that thing I made up—you know—

"'Now Micky Magee wi' his piggy so wee

Went courtin' the fair Molly Moore—'

"Remember? Well, I put a lot of expression and action into it—chaps were roaring, and as I finished, out from the manager's room burst that little chap—Mark Yovil! Wasn't it killing? He had heard it all! Owned he'd been listening. And he's quite struck!" He gave a shout of laughter. "He is, 'pon my word! He says my voice is made for reading aloud and reciting! I feel like a little saintly chorister or something. Lancaster and I have promised to go to his place next Tuesday. They're going to start on Henry V,' and I'm to be Hal himself! Now what do you think of your twin, Nell?"

"That he's getting so puffed up that soon all that remains of him will be a farewell pop—oh—"

Along the passages her fleeing voice echoed, "I haven't any run—left in me—oh, Denis!"

CHAPTER VII

It was a damp close day. Nell felt stifled and cross, and was ashamed of the feeling. The deep depression that sometimes seized upon her held her now. The longing for her home gripped her in a sudden fresh access of misery. She sat on her bed and tortured herself by imagining strangers in all the rooms—about the grounds. As she always did, in these depressions, she lost sight of the fact that her home was let and not sold. She told herself they had not a home now. She said that they were outcasts, and would never set foot in Ireland again. She wondered keenly why they did not all die. Turned out of home and country; father and mother hundreds of miles away; poor and desolate, why did they continue to live? And laugh! She was quite sure just then that she would never laugh again.

She rose to make her bed. The depth of her depression had a physical effect, making the mere folding of her nightgown an act that required a strong effort. At Kilbrannan no weather had affected her beautiful young health and strength. She did not realise that the sudden and tremendous change in her way of living was bound to tell on her, more or less, at first.

She made her bed languidly. When Molly burst into the room she actually jumped.

"I'm growing nervey in my old age! If I believed in presentiments, I should think something horrid was going to happen. I feel presentimenty." Of course she did not believe in presentiments; she reminded herself so several times that morning. Just as, of course, she wasn't the least bit superstitious. She knew a great many of her country-people were, but not she! When she found herself inadvertently walking beneath a ladder, she laughed. "If I were superstitious, I should feel horrid that I had done that!" At luncheon Denis helped her to salt, with a mischievous grin as he did it.

"I shall bring you sorrow now, old girl!" he murmured, "unless," his eyes twinkling, "you throw some over your left shoulder, you know."

"It's likely I would!" said Nell.

She fell to thinking how funny it was that all on that one day she had a presentiment, first of all, that something bad was going to happen; then she walked beneath a ladder, and then Denis helped her to salt. If she were superstitious, how uneasy she would be! But she wasn't, so it didn't matter.

Miss Kezia picked up a letter that had come just then. Molly went a fiery red, glanced at Nell, then blurted out, jumping up and knocking her chair over, "Do let me fetch your spectacles, Aunt Kezia!"

Miss Kezia turned her head slowly and looked at her, with a good deal of offence.

"I never wear spectacles, Molly; I do not require them. Pray sit down."

"Oh!" gasped Molly, and sat down, covered with confusion.

"I do not know," pursued Miss Kezia, "if you intended to be impertinent. If so, it was very feeble."

The whole table except Molly and her aunt were too convulsed to offer the former any aid.

Molly sat and stared into her plate, the fiery red of face and neck refusing to die down. In books, she reflected miserably, the aunts always wore spectacles.

After luncheon, when Denis had gone back to the bank, Nell tried to go on with a painting she was doing of Mrs. Barclay's tabby cat.

"To think that I should have come to cats! To be so hard up for models that I have to seek refuge in a cat! Oh, what a great, stupid, moon face you've got, Tim! K.K., come here. You needn't be jealous, my dear. You're worth all the cats in the world."

Kate Kearney refused to budge. She sat in a corner, her back to the room. It was her way of showing dignified disapproval. Denis called it sulks. Poor K.K.—she had been called sternly to order when she teased the cat. No one seemed to object to the cat's swearing at her. Very well. It was an unjust world. She sat and presented the room with a beautiful black shiny back and long drooping ears.

For no obvious reason, except that it was a horrid day, somehow, and horrid things seemed to come naturally into one's mind, Nell fell to worrying over Denis and his ideas on the lottery question. He often teased her on the subject, declaring that though he had not gone in for any more just yet, he was working it all out in his mind, and would be a millionnaire some day, in spite of her.

"Oh, K.K., let's go out! Cats are too much for me! So are studies to-day."

A quiver tingled all along that sedate little black back.

Nell laughed. "Very well, we'll go without her, won't we, Sheila Pat? We'll go for a walk—a walk! Good-bye, Kate Kearney!"

It was too much for her dignity or her sulks. With a frenzied howl she hurled herself on them.

"Nell," Sheila Pat looked thoughtful, "don't you think it would be perlite to ask that little boy next door to come with us? But I won't walk beside him," she added hastily.

The breach had been healed between them, to a certain extent. Stewart had responded suitably to her letter that she was "sorry," but the Atom was still cautious; the Catechism and cricket question loomed always before her.

She planted herself between Nell and Molly, and walked along with a certain aloofness that kept him in his place. He laughed and talked with Nell, and the Atom listened. In her rigidly honest soul she confessed that he did not sound like a goody-goo, but there was always that question of the cricket and the Catechism.

He came in with them and had tea. Denis did not appear. Nell found herself making an effort to laugh and talk. It took her back, with a little shiver, to those bad last days at Kilbrannan. Stewart avoided the Atom's serious eyes shyly; he seemed much more at his ease with Nell and Molly.

When he was going, Sheila Pat went down with him into the hall. Nell went, too, and Molly. But Sheila Pat slipped out on to the doorstep, and accosted him in an earnest whisper. "Are you sure you'd sooner learn your Catchykism than play cricket?"

"Yes," he said with an obstinate jerk to his small chin.

Sheila Pat followed the others back to the Stronghold in silence. Sarah came up presently with a slip of paper in her hand.

"For you, miss," she said to Nell. Nell opened it wonderingly.

"Don't know what time I'll be in, old girl. Haven't a moment to write. On the way to be a millionnaire. Tell you when I see you. Awful spree. Don't let on to anyone.

"Denis."

It was scrawled in pencil, evidently in a frantic hurry.

"What is it?" Molly inquired.

"Only a note from Denis—to say he'll be late." Nell spoke slowly. She twisted the paper in her hands with a feverishness, a restlessness oddly in contrast with her slow speech. She turned and went downstairs to the kitchen.

"Sarah, who brought that note just now?"

"A boy, miss."

"What sort of boy?"

"A urchin, miss, up to no good, I should say."

Nell wandered aimlessly to the dresser and played with a plate.

"Did he look disreputable, Sarah?"

"Awful, miss," delightedly revelling in her word-painting, "sort of boy the pleece 'ud be after, I should say."

"The police!" Nell gave a queer little jump. "Oh, Sarah, isn't it hot to-day?"

"You do look pale, miss; it's a nasty un'ealthy day, an unlucky day, my mother 'ud say."

"Unlucky! Oh, why, Sarah?"

"Well, you see, miss, it was on just such a warm, unseasoning (Nell supposed she meant unseasonable) day that father was run over and killed."

"Oh, don't, Sarah!" Nell hurried away into the hall. She stood a moment, hesitating. A latch-key fumbled in the lock of the door. She waited, knowing it was Herr Schmidt. Miss Kezia never fumbled. He came in with his heavy tread.

"Ach, Fräulein, it is a bad day, eh?"

"Horrible!" she said.

He glanced at her and smiled.

"Poor Mr. Weather," he said, chuckling. "We are angry when he is colt, we are angry when he is warm."

"May I—may I come and talk to you a little, Herr Schmidt?"

"Oh, with such bleasure!" he beamed at her over his spectacles.

Nell went into his room and stood looking out into the dark street.

"I will light the lamp, Fräulein. Zere, now you can see me. Will you blease to sit down?"

She sat down. "You—I suppose you know all about business and money, don't you, Herr Schmidt?" She had seized an ink pot that was on the table, and seemed to be clutching it meaninglessly.

He smiled widely.

"They call me a goot business head, Fräulein."

"Do you have good weather in Germany, Herr Schmidt?"

He looked rather bewildered. The other question had seemed the opening of a conversation on business matters. He replied with conscientious length. Nell seemed to be listening absorbedly; she left hold of the ink pot. She was wondering if she had artfully put him sufficiently off the scent. Denis would never forgive her if she were to talk of his lottery to Herr Schmidt.

"I suppose," she remarked casually in a pause on his part for breath, "there are lotteries and things like that in Germany as well as here?"

Herr Schmidt had not finished about his climate. He blinked his eyes several times, then turned his mind to the new question. He started to give her a good deal of information on the subject. He spoke strongly, because he felt strongly about all forms of gambling. Nell had clutched hold of the ink pot again.

"And—and are there gambling places like that in England?" in a pause on his part.

"Ach, yes, Fräulein. In the bapers constantly one reads of the bolice appearing at the scene and taking them all to brison."

"Oh!" Nell jerked the ink pot suddenly and a few drops spattered her hand. Herr Schmidt produced blotting paper, and wiped the spots off carefully.

"Thank you very much." She rose and went to the door. "Good-bye, Herr Schmidt."

"Goot-bye. You, berhaps," with a curious, wistful glance over his spectacles that made him look like a great baby, "would not care to eat a biece of cake?"

"Not now, thank you. I—another time if I may."

The evening wore on slowly. Nell twice put her ear to the little clock on the mantel-shelf, thinking it must have stopped.

Molly, fathoms deep in "Monsieur Beaucaire," was blind and deaf to everything else, but Sheila Pat eyed Nell shrewdly.

"Can't you be sittin' still at all, Nell O'Brien?" she demanded impatiently.

Nell started and grew red.

"I like walking up and down."

"Do you like pickin' up that jogglefry book and lookin' at it every time you pass the table?" The Atom's sarcastic little tongue was sharp.

But Nell squashed her with a guiltily unkind, "What's a jogglefry book?"

The Atom grew slowly scarlet. After a little while she fetched the dictionary, and wrestled with it indefatigably till bedtime. She hunted, her mouth set firmly, her brows frowning, all through the "J's". She went to bed unsatisfied. When Molly had been in bed a few minutes a little night-gowned figure crept into the room.

"Molly!"

Molly gave a yell of terror. "Oh, Sheila Pat, you did make me jump! What do you want?"

The Atom stood shivering beside her bed. "Molly, how—how'd you be savin' Jog—you know all about pennyshulars and capes and gulfs and things?"

"Geography, do you mean?"

"Yes. Jography. Is that right?"

"Yes," sleepily. "Go back to bed."

In the Stronghold Nell waited for Denis. It was nine o'clock. She went into a front room and looked out into the street. She wondered vaguely why everything sounded so clear and loud; why the scent of a sandal-wood box was so sharp. She did not know that every nerve was on the stretch, that she was strung up till every sense was painfully acute. As she stood at the window she heard a hubbub of men's voices; the noise of many feet. They passed into the distance, across the top of Henley Road. She saw them in her mind—men being taken to the police station. She turned suddenly and ran into her bedroom. Sheila Pat was asleep. She seized a hat and coat, flung off her shoes, put on others, and crept down the stairs. Miss Kezia was not at home, but in the hall, just going out, Herr Schmidt stood drawing on his gloves.

"I haf to take a book to a friend," he said, his eyes questioning her surprisedly, as his tongue was too polite to do.

"Yes?" she said vaguely. She went to the door.

"Is your brozzer outside waiting for you, Fräulein?"

Up went Nell's head.

"No, Herr Schmidt."

He moved a step so that he blocked her way.

"He is coming down ze stairs?"

"No. I am going out alone. Please let me pass, Herr Schmidt!"

There was a little pause. Nell pulled restlessly at the throat of her coat.

"It is nine o'clock, Fräulein. Young laties do not go out alone at that time."

"Let me pass!" her eyes blazed; she stamped her foot. "What business is it of yours? How dare you stop me!" she said haughtily.

"I am frightened," he declared simply, "but I dare because I see you are young and a little girl who does not understand—"

"But I must go, Herr Schmidt! Please, oh, please don't stop me! It is important—"

"Poor little one, no, I will not stop you. I will kom also."

He moved aside and began to open the door.

She said coldly, "It—it is a private matter!"

"Zen take your bruzzer, Fräulein."

"He is out."

"Zen I know. See, I will be blind, Fräulein. I will be deaf. I see noting. I hear noting. I do but take care of you, Fräulein, hein?"

"Very well," she said impatiently. "I want a cab."

He beamed. "Zat is right, meine liebe. All will be well now."

Nell was quivering with nervous impatience. She gave the driver Ted Lancaster's address and sprang into the cab. She was conscious of the heavy jolt as Herr Schmidt climbed in—so slowly, oh, so slowly! She had lost all sense of proportion in her mind. She was absorbed in a sort of wild terror, a foreboding, and her one idea was to get to Ted Lancaster. It was all his fault. He would know. Probably, almost certainly, it was at his house it was all going on. She did not wait to wonder what Denis would think of her appearance on the scene. She had only room for one thought—to get him away, to warn him, before the police came.

The cab stopped at last at No. 16 Gowan Square, and they got out. Herr Schmidt rang the bell, and after an interval the door was opened by a sleepy-looking maid.

"Mr. Lancaster, miss?' He isn't at home. Oh, Mr. Edward—yes, he's at home. Will you come this way?"

They entered the handsome hall; the maid opened a door and showed them into a small sort of anteroom.

"What name, please?"

But Nell was strung up to such a pitch now that she could wait no longer. She followed the maid across the hall. In answer to her knock a lazy voice responded, "Come in." Then, as she opened the door: "You don't mean to say you've come, Thompson! Why, I've only rung once!"

Over the maid's shoulder Nell saw a large, handsome room; a table still littered with the dinner things; a huge fire, and in front of it a chair, over the top of which she could see a piece of smooth, dark head. On the mantel-shelf reposed a pair of patent-leather shoes; she had a glimpse of the legs they belonged to, of a pair of black silk socks with a little green pattern on them, and a haze of blue smoke. She saw it all in a lightning flash, and Denis was not there!

The pleasant, lazily sarcastic voice had drowned the maid's words. She began again.

"Thompson's out, sir, and it's a lady to see you."

"A lady?" Neither the head nor the feet moved. "Oh, I say, Mary, it's the Pater she wants."

"She said you, sir."

"Don't you know her?"

"No, sir, and—and she's here," in a desperate voice, suddenly becoming aware of Nell's proximity.

"Here!" Down came the legs; up jumped Ted Lancaster.

"Oh, I say!" He stood facing Nell, red and uncomfortable. He gave his hair a surreptitious pat and flung his cigarette into the fire. Then he turned on Mary.

"Why did you show this lady in here? Where's Thompson?" he demanded angrily.

"He's out, sir, and—and—"

The sudden apathy of disappointment that had come over Nell broke.

"She didn't show me in here. I followed her. This room will do. I am in a hurry."

The maid disappeared.

"Where is Denis?" Nell's voice broke the little silence in measured accents.

"If you will come into another room—"

"No, thanks. This room will do."

He pushed a chair toward her and gave his tie a pull.

"Where is Denis?" she repeated, not noticing the chair. She stood facing him, her slim figure drawn to its full height, her head thrown back.

"I—I'm sure I don't know—won't you sit down?" He drew his hand nervously over his hair. "Do you mean O'Brien?"

"Whom else should I mean? Where is he?"

"'Pon my word, I don't know! I—won't you sit down?"

"Hasn't he been here this evening?"

His rueful brows mounted higher and higher till his forehead was all little creases, which, oddly enough, Nell remembered afterwards.

"No—no, he hasn't— But I saw him—about—about—"

"Oh, would you mind being quick?" she broke in irritatedly; her cheeks were a vivid pink, her eyes shone. Ted, looking at her, suddenly burst out, "I say, are you O'Brien's sister?"

"Oh, no, his aunt!"

It wasn't a dignified retort, but the extreme and very scornful exasperation in the sarcastic inflection made him redden to the roots of his hair.

"When did you see him? Oh, do tell me quickly!"

"I beg pardon. It's—er—a trifle disconcerting," a gleam of humour shot into his grey eyes, "rather unexpected, you know, and—er—all that. I saw him about three, I think."

"Oh!" gasped she. "That must have been in the bank! You know—you must know—I don't mean that! Where is he now?"

"I don't know," patiently.

"Don't know! Don't you know anything, or don't you care? I must find him. He—he maybe wearing handcuffs in prison now!"

Ted Lancaster put up his hand and rubbed his nose.

For the first time she noticed his coat. It was a pretty coat—a loose, silk smoking-jacket—but in some unaccountable way it was, to her, the last stroke. All her pent-up nervousness, her quivering impatience, suddenly culminated in wild wrath against the wearer of that coat.

"Oh!" she cried, her soft voice low and passionate. "It is all your fault! You invite him here—you suggest this hateful lottery business. What do you care? You make him gamble—but it doesn't hurt you. You don't need money—you aren't led on by the hope of winning a great heap of money. You only dabble in it. It doesn't matter to you whether you win or lose. And you don't care if he loses! Why should you? You don't care if he gets into trouble—if he's taken to prison! Oh, no, you're safe, so what does anything matter? And now he has gone—gone somewhere to make money, and I—I can't find him. He is so careless—he would laugh at the idea of a policeman coming after him. It's all a joke to you—I expect," her voice suddenly lost all its fire; "you are laughing at me now—"

"I'm not! I'm not a cad, whatever else I may be!"

She glanced at him, vaguely surprised. His face had lost its ruefulness, its uncomfortableness. He looked suddenly older and grimmer; his eyes stared at her angrily from beneath frowning brows.

She turned to the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know—to find him."

In a few strides he was before her.

"You're not going out alone to look for him!" he observed quietly.

She drew a quick little breath.

"Now look here," he went on before she could reply at all; "I don't know where he is. I haven't an idea. But I'm a good deal more likely to find him than you are. Whether he'll be pleased to have me coming around after him as if I'm his nurse is another matter. I'll do it. He'd be angrier if you did it. Although I'm the bad character you've just drawn for my benefit, I promise I won't give information to the police you're so afraid of. I shall go first to Pennington's. Anyhow, I'll find him somehow. But you've got to promise to go straight home first."

"Allow me to pass at once!" Her face was quite white now; she spoke in a low, desperately quiet voice.

"I'm not going to. What's it matter if I'm rude to you? Isn't it only in accordance with your idea of me?"

"Quite. But it matters, because I am determined to go and find him. I am not alone. I am with a gentleman," she added this unwillingly but in despair. "He will go with me."

"He'll take you home at once. You'll excuse my saying that you're acting very unwisely. You're only keeping me—and doing no good. O'Brien is probably at home now—or more probably," his mouth twisted humourously, "out hunting for you. Hadn't you better go?"

"Yes, I'll go!" her voice gave a little choke. "I'll go, but oh, how I hate you! If only I could show you how I hate you!"

"If that's all, you're showing me remarkably well, Miss O'Brien."

He turned and opened the door for her. She went across the hall and rejoined Herr Schmidt. When she saw his broad, kindly face, his anxious eyes peering over his spectacles at her, she felt a sudden fondness for him, a weak inclination to cry. She ran to him and slipped her hand into his arm.

"Take me home, Herr Schmidt, please," she cried.

In the cab the reaction came. Suppose she had been making a fuss about nothing? What would Denis think of her? Two tears fell with a little splash on her ungloved hands. She turned suddenly to her big, silent companion.

"Herr Schmidt, was I horrid to you about coming with me?"

"Ach, mein Fräulein! I intrude, I know—-"

"Oh, you don't, you don't! I think you have been beautiful! I'll never forget it!"

"Fräulein, you are goot to say so, but I am troubled. I haf ze unquiet conscience about you."

"You needn't have, Herr Schmidt. I—" with a sudden wild Irish change of feeling, "I believe I have just been making a fuss about nothing!" She gave a quick little laugh. "Oh, Herr Schmidt, it's nothing at all! Don't go making mountains out of it."

"Fräulein, I will think of it as a mere young maid's episode. Hein? A mere naughty prank."

She laughed almost hysterically.

"That's it, Herr Schmidt!"

She went up to the Stronghold and sat down wearily. Only five minutes to ten now! It seemed hours since she had left that room. She sat doing nothing—just waiting. She had not long to wait. In a very little while there was a ring at the door; she sat forward, listening breathlessly, but she did not go downstairs. Then she heard him coming up. He strode into the room, laughing.

"I say, old girl, such a spree! Never enjoyed myself so much since I've been in London! Spoilt my gloves a bit! Given 'em quite the dear old look—"

"What have you been doing, Denis?"

"Driving a hansom!"

"A—is that all?"

"Rather! Quite enough, too, with a brute like that! What's up, Nell?"

She had risen and gone across to the window; she was looking out with great interest through one of the slats of the Venetian blind.

"Nothing. Tell me about it."

"I'm ravenous, by the way! Still, here goes. I went with Pennington about his camera—gone wrong—to the shop after I left the bank this afternoon. When I left him I came upon a hansom—empty—no driver—ugly brute of a horse, sort of pink roan. I was having a look at him when out came cabby from the public house. He had evidently 'met friends,' as they say at home, and he hailed me as a long-lost brother. Well, I wanted to drive that hansom, wanted to see what it was like. He wouldn't let me—swore he'd be taken up and so should I if we were found out. I tipped him. He hesitated. I let out a flood of native eloquence and another tip. I might drive it to the corner and up the next road and back to him. I did. Then at the corner I called back to him not to get anxious if I took a few hours getting to the end of that road. Heavens, he did swear! He started chasing me, too, but gave it up when he found a lamp-post in his way. I called out to him that all the tips over sixpence I won by my eloquence I should stick to. By Jove, it was a spree! I pulled my hat down over my eyes, turned up my collar, and trusted to the darkness to hide my aristocratic features from the bobbies. Then it struck me you'd get wondering where I was, and I pulled out a letter I'd taken down for old Pom-Pom to some man, and which I'd forgotten to send off, tore off the blank sheet, scrawled that message to you, shouted at a boy, threw it at his head, and sent him off with it. I've posted t'other half just now, by the way. Then I prepared to enjoy myself! I've taken tons of people to the theatres and restaurants. I made that brute go! But he nearly pulled my arms out of their sockets every now and then—had a mouth like my boots. Guess what I made—thirteen and six! Not bad, you know. But I needed it all to soften cabby's wrath. He'd been in a dead funk that I'd made off with horse and cab for good. Oh, I can tell you, he was pretty eloquent! But I soothed him a bit with the thirteen and six. I wish I'd met Lancaster a bit sooner," he broke off, "I'd have made him pay double fare!"

"Sooner?" Nell said.

"Yes. Met him just now. He was apparently gazing at the house. Fallen in love with Aunt Kezia, perhaps."

"Did—didn't—he say anything?"

"Not much. What d'you mean?"

"I—I want to tell you something, Denis. I—I've been—mad, I think—"

"Thought there was something up. What is it, old girl?"

Nell suddenly turned and faced him.

"You'll hate me," she said, and plunged into her story.

When she had done there was a little silence. She had averted her eyes from him in terror. She knew how a boy of his age would loathe the fuss she had made—how he would resent her going to Lancaster. She turned her eyes to him—he had buried his head in the cushion and was shaking with laughter!

"Oh, poor old Lancaster! Did you really slang him like that, Nell? I can see him."

She drew a deep breath.

He sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"Poor beggar!" he chuckled. "Oh, it's rich!"

Then he sobered.

"But—were you mad, Nell? To make up bogeys in your mind and go rushing off like that—"

"I don't know, Denis," she said humbly. "I don't know what was the matter with me to-day. I—I never was so silly at home. I felt sort of funny all day, I think."

He was frowning.

"I don't like it at all—your going off to Lancaster like that! It was jolly decent of Herr Schmidt to go with you. You ought to have known better, Nell."

"Yes."

He looked at her irritatedly.

"Don't be so beastly meek! You know you've been awfully idiotic all round. And you've made me look a most consummate fool, and"—his mouth widened again in spite of himself—"you've slanged poor Lancaster most unwarrantably. It was awfully rude, you know, and quite mad. He really hasn't been leading your little twin astray. As a matter of fact, it was he who squashed my idea of making money by going in for big lotteries. He's got a level head, and he reasoned it all out on paper and proved some way or other that I stood, ten to one, or a hundred to one, or something, to lose in the end. I've only been teasing you when I talked about going in for them. I didn't know you were bothering about it. And I never thought of the beastly things when I scrawled that note off to you. I've never been in for any sweepstake or thing of that kind except that one I told you of. I hope you think you've made enough fuss all round about nothing!"

Nell was silent. She seemed to have no spark of spirit left. She made no defence. Suddenly he rose and came to her. He caught her shoulders and shook her.

"There, never mind, you poor meek little goose! You'd better be off to bed, and sleep some sense into your soft old head."

She was struggling desperately against tears.

"I—I'm awfully sorry, Denis—and ashamed—I—I do believe I was mad—"

"Course you were," cheerfully, "temporary insanity. It's this beastly London fog got into your brain. I'll make it all right with Lancaster—tell him you're sorry and all that."

She winced.

"Yes—please," she said. "And—and you won't—feel that you—that I—"

"I've forgotten all about it already, old girl!" he declared generously.

CHAPTER VIII

"What d'you think I'm let in for, Nell O'Brien?"

"I don't know. I haven't a guess in me. Aunt Kezia has squashed me flat. I've low instincts, Denis,—think of that! And no sense of what is befitting a young lady, and all sorts of other things. Oh, I'm a bad character entirely!"

He flung down his hat.

"Think I didn't know all that already? What made our respected aunt discover it?"

"I'm sick of having no models!" she burst out passionately. "I haven't touched a horse for weeks! I—I'm just aching for the mere feel of them! A cat! Beyond Kate Kearney I'm offered a cat! It's like offering a starving man a piece of sugar-stick! Denis, try to draw a cat! A heap of stupid, meaningless fur! No muscles—no veins—oh, a horse is so glorious to paint!" She broke off with a quick little laugh. "Twin Nell 'pletely sorry," she said, using an old baby formula. "Tell me what you're let in for?"

"Not till you tell me what you've been up to."

"Oh, it was nothing. I saw a hansom waiting outside the corner house. Ripping little chestnut, Denis," her whole-face kindled irresistibly; "the driver told me she was almost a thoroughbred. When a car passed along the top of the road, she played-up beautifully. Oh, the drawing in her! Well, I saw her from a window and seized up my sketch-book and bolted up the road. Now, is there any harm in that? I asked the driver how long he thought he'd be, and he smiled and said his fare was a solicitor who'd come to a client's house on business. 'They charge for their time, miss!' he said meaningly, so I rejoiced and started sketching her in. And he was such a nice man, too. He'd actually been to the Dublin horse show a few years ago. We had an argument about our horses. And he made her put her head as I wanted, and he told me how he'd come across her, and then—oh, I'd left the hall door open, of course, and Aunt Kezia—oh, Denis, you'd think I'd committed something much worse than a murder!"

"Show me the sketch."

"I did one of her—and then several bits—quite rough. I'm going to paint her into that picture I was doing."

"It's splendid, Nell. What a cute little beast!"

"Now tell me what you've been let in for?"

"A speech! A lecture! Old Yovil has let us all in for it. You can't say no to him somehow—he sort of works you up. Lancaster's swearing like the wind round the Craffrone tower. He says he must have been out of his mind to say he'd do it, but he can't go back now. It's to be on the third. Choose any subject you like—write it up—no notes, though—and spout forth in his drawing-room to a long-suffering audience. There're six of us going in for it, and a ripping edition of all the immortal Billy's plays for the winner."

"Which will be you," annotated Nell with conviction.

"Not it! There's one chap—Morley—poetical sort of ass, who wears his hair too long—he'll beat me in a canter, my dear, not to mention the others."

"I'll come and hear you, won't I, Denis?"

"Wish you could! But there won't be any ladies. Only us and Yovil, you know."

After luncheon a maid came to ask if the Atom might go and have tea with Stewart. Sheila Pat, her Pearl clasped beneath one arm, and a spelling-book beneath the other, interviewed her in the hall.

"I'm not comin', thank you, Mary."

The maid hesitated. "If you could, miss—"

"I have reasons of my own for not comin', Mary."

"Very well, miss, only—he's such a dear little boy, and you'd brighten him up like."

Sheila Pat looked worried.

"Does he want me to come?"

"Yes, miss."

"Then I will!" She heaved a big sigh. "Unless," brightening, "Aunt Kezia doesn't wish me to. I'll go and ask her."

She came back sadly.

"I can come," she said ungraciously.

"Sarah! Sarah!"

Down the stairs floated Miss Kezia's voice, stern anger in its tone.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sarah, I cannot find my house-shoes! I have forbidden you to move any of my things."

"I—I haven't touched 'em, ma'am!"

"She's getting trembly—like an earthquake, poor little hap'orth," observed Nell.

"Not touched them? Then where are they? They have disappeared! Are you sure—"

"Nell—oh, Nell, I—I put them on the dining-room fender to warm!"

"Molly! Oh, you are too lovely for anything! Hadn't you better go and tell her?"

Molly cowered down in her chair.

"I daren't!"

"I will, then."

She turned to the door, but Molly jumped up. "No, I'll go!"

She came tearing back presently and flung herself down into a chair.

"Well?"

But Molly buried her head in the chair-back and said nothing.

"Molly," Nell grasped her shoulder, "was she awful?"

"Y-yes, she was!" sobbed Molly. "Oh, I did want to soften her—and—and—oh, Nell," her voice suddenly shook with watery laughter, "K.K. had been at her shoes and—had eaten all the linings!"

"Oh, how delightful!"

"It's awfully funny, but—oh, she's in a frightful temper! She—she says I'm an interfering—busybody! And when she wants coddling—she'll—she'll have a nurse in to do it for her—properly! She—shut K.K. in the boot closet! She made Sarah clear it out first. Can't you hear her howling? Oh, Nell, why did I go and forget all about her shoes? I meant to take them to her directly she came in—all nice and warm—"

"She might be warm, but she wouldn't be nice, Mol."

"Don't be silly! You know what I meant. Of course, it's all very funny to you—"

"My dear Molly, you must confess it is rather funny!"

Molly began to shake with laughter. "Oh, Nell, and K.K. looked so beautifully meek and innocent and the linings only little bits of leather left sticking out—and they're such big, flat shoes! And K.K.'s toe-scratches all over them. Oh, and Nell—" Molly couldn't go on for a while—"while she—was talking—so awfully majestic and angry—oh, Nell!—K.K. seized a shoe out of her hand and fled with it, shaking it—you know how she does! Oh, I'm glad you weren't there!"

After a while Nell went upstairs. She listened outside the boot closet; all was still. A good deal surprised, she went into her room. Sheila Pat, in her petticoat, sat huddled up on a chair, scissors in hand, bending over the frock she had just taken off.

"What are you doing, Atom?"

She lifted a worried face.

"I'm just lengthing it," she said curtly.

"Oh, Kate Kearney, how did you get out of the boot cupboard?"

"I let her out," calmly. "I tried all the keys on the doors, and," triumphantly, "Sarah's fitted it!"

"Sheila Pat, I'm ashamed of you. My dear child, you're not unpicking the stitches at all—you're merely cutting little snips in the stuff. And, anyway, you're not to do it."

"I like this dress, but it's rikkleously short. I don't think it's perlite to wear them so short, Nell."

"Well, you'll have to be impolite then. Come along into the Stronghold, sweetheart. You're frozen."

"I did want to wear it to go and see that boy! Nell, wouldn't you just let down the hem?"

"No, Atom, I won't. I hate long frocks for short atoms."

Presently, uneasily, "Do you hate me for being so hard, Sheila Pat?"

"The O'Briens," excessively grown-upedly, "don't hate each other so easily, Nell."

When the Atom came back after tea she was very quiet. Nell wondered if she were tired; she answered all questions as to her afternoon's enjoyment in her soft little voice that gave her curt sentences such a quaintness, but she originated no remark of her own. An hour after she had gone to bed Nell went into her room and peeped at her. She lay wide-eyed, thoughtful. A little after that she appeared suddenly in her night-gown at the door of the Stronghold.

"Hulloa, Atom!" Denis seized her and swung her up; her arms went round his neck.

"Denis," the strenuous little voice sounded as if it were near breaking, "I must go next door, please."

"Now?"

"Yes."

"But you're in your nightie, old girl! What do you want to go for?"

"It's a private reason." Her arms clung tighter; she pressed her cheek against his. Nell met the great eyes looking over his shoulder, and went up to her gently.

"Can't you wait till to-morrow, Atom?"

"Why, you'll have to," put in Molly. "If it's Stewart you want, he'll be in bed."

"I must go now, Denis; please take me now."

"We can wrap her up," said soft-hearted Denis.

The arms round his neck gave a little spasmodic squeeze.

"Thank y-you," said the Atom.

Laughing, he wrapped her in a great coat of his and a blanket, and carried her down the steps and in next door.

Mrs. Barclay was a good deal surprised to see them. Denis put the Atom down, and she stood shivering, her small white face peering with a queer intensity from out the blanket.

"Stewart, my dear? Well, I am afraid he is in bed—"

"Please may I go up to him?"

"Very well; come along."

"Please may I go by my alone?"

"Oh! Yes, dear, if you like."

"Thank you."

She turned and went up the stairs to the room Stewart had shown her that afternoon. She knocked politely at the door, then went in. The gas was burning dimly.

"You? Is it a fire next door?" He sat up in bed with joyful anticipation on his face.

"No. I—I want to speak to you."

"Is the Pearl ill?"

"No." She climbed on to his bed and sat silent.

"Hurry up!"

"I—you see, I think I have been very unjust. I am sorry. I—when you said you would rather learn your Catchykism than play cricket, was it because of your leg?"

"Oh, don't bother! I want to go to sleep!"

"Please tell me!" the tone was not pleading, but authoritative.

"Yes, then!"

"I—I'm very sorry," quavered Sheila Pat. "I'm not mostly so nasty," she added extenuatingly. "I didn't think of that."

Stewart was hugging his knees up under his chin.

"You see, I kept thinking you must be a goody-goo because of that."

"You see," he said haltingly, "I—can't run quickly—or field—"

"No."

There was a pause.

"Do you think," came the quavering little voice, "you will ever be able to like me?"

"Rather!"

"Do you like me now?"

"Course!"

"You may kiss me just once—round by that ear—if you like," said Sheila Pat.

"I'll kiss you twice if I like!" giving her two hearty smacks.

"Oh!" said Sheila Pat. Suddenly she perked up. "I shall call you Tommy," she said. "Stewart is like a book."

"All right."

"You see," her tone was rather uncomfortable, "I did mean—I had quite dessided—you see, I thought I had been very nasty, and I thought you would be very cross, and I did mean to give you—my Pearl—for a whole week—but I don't want to now."

"I wouldn't take her. Peter'd be awful jealous, you bet!"

"So he would," joyfully. "Oh, Tommy, do let's have a pillow fight!"

So it was that the listeners downstairs, with the memory of the small tragic figure that had left them still vividly in their minds, were startled by a sudden uproar of cries and bumps and laughter. Denis, up the stairs in a moment, and joining in the fray in another moment, found a wild Sheila Pat, shining-eyed, squealing with excitement, pelting Stewart with a pillow. He was not surprised, but Mrs. Barclay felt somewhat bewildered.

CHAPTER IX

Sheila Pat came thoughtfully into the room. "Nell," she observed, "we give Sarah a lot of extra work."

Nell looked up with an absent eye. She was trying to calculate how much they would be able to spend on toys for their Dublin hospital this year. They were determined not to omit their contribution to the annual Christmas tree and festivities.

"We make our own beds," said Molly, virtuously.

"But she has to clean out this room to-day; it's cleanin' day. And she's goin' home this evenin' to see her mother, and she walks all the way there and back with her young man. You see, if she didn't, she'd never be walkin' out with him at all. And she tidies up at home, because her mother's mostly ailin', and she bathes every one of her brothers and sisters. There now, Nell O'Brien!"

Nell flung aside paper and pencil.

"Come on, Atom, we'll turn this room out ourselves!"

"I'll go and tell Sarah." The Atom trotted contentedly from the room. "Aunt Kezia's out!" she called back.

"How on earth do you begin?" asked Molly, looking helplessly around.

"Oh, you put everything out in the passage first of all," said Nell, confidently, "then you tie your head up in a duster or something, because of the dust, you know, and then you begin to sweep and fill the room with dust. Oh, and the big things you cover over with dusting sheets. I'll get all the things we'll want from Sarah. You go and tie up your head."

"Oh, miss!" Sarah was in a state of horror bordering on lunacy. "You young ladies to do my work!"

But Nell got her way in the end.

The Atom helped in a silence that was ecstatic. She pinned up her pig-tail, and tied a clean duster round her head. Molly followed suit, and then the supply being exhausted, Nell twisted a pale blue silk scarf round hers, and they set to work. They brushed and brushed; silence reigned in the Stronghold. Sheila Pat broke it to observe in a rather breathless but deeply content voice, "We're gettin' a fine dust now!"

Denis came in with a rush. "Hulloa! I say, old man," he called over his shoulder, "rather a choking atmosphere!"

Nell's greeting froze on her lips. Her laughing glance met a pair of well-remembered grey eyes looking straight at her over Denis's shoulder. She stood quite still; the hot colour dyed her face red.

"I'll go—really, O'Brien, I'd rather—another time!"

The uncomfortable murmur reached her ear; she forgot all about her unfortunate visit—all about her sense of antagonism. She went swiftly forward, hand outstretched, smiling charmingly.

"Please don't go! Really, we've almost finished. The dust is dying down already."

"After manoeuvring the barricade outside successfully you've got to stay, old man," Denis declared. "Tell us what you're doing, anyway, Nell."

But Nell was interested to see the ruefulness in her visitor's face change suddenly to keen amusement. She followed his look to the head of Sheila Pat, which, adorned dusterwise, was crowned with her pig-tail sticking straight up on top out of the duster. She gave a little laugh, and he laughed too. She turned to Denis and explained why they were cleaning out the room. Then Ted Lancaster astonished them all.

"I say," he burst out eagerly, "I wish you'd let me stay and lend a hand!"

Sheila Pat, squatting on her heels in the middle of the floor, with a short brush, looked up at him approvingly.

"Come along in and shut the door, there's a good boy!"

The good boy's eyes twinkled as he obeyed. He removed his extremely smart coat and professed his readiness to begin.

"By the way," observed Denis, the corners of his mouth twitching humorously, "I'd better introduce him first!"

"Oh—yes," said Nell, blushing suddenly.

Ted Lancaster bowed gravely to her and with almost deeper gravity to Sheila Pat.

"That's another sister over there in the cupboard," Denis remarked. "Molly's fond of cupboards."

The two boys set to work and raised a fearful dust. Nell observed ruefully that the parts they were sweeping had been gone over once already.

Ted looked up earnestly, his brush pausing:—

"You must let us do it—O'Brien and me—every week, Miss O'Brien; our arms are stronger."

"I," said the Atom, weightily, "think you are a very nice boy."

"And I think you are a very nice lit—young lady."

"I'll show you my snowy-breasted Pearl afterwards."

"Eh? Oh, thanks."

"He's very sensertive; you mustn't mind if he bites you a little."

"Oh, I'll like it. So your white-breasted Pearl's a boy, is he?"

"I'll essplain to you about his name another time," she said with great dignity. She came closer, and whispered: "Denis calls him somethin' else. I'm 'fraid he might do it now. Promise you'll never, never ask him what he calls my Pearl!"

He looked surprised into the beseeching face.

"All right," he said gently, "I'll never ask him."

"Thank you."

She dusted a table leg in silence.

"You are English, aren't you?" she said then.

He nodded.

"Perhaps you've lived years and years in Ireland?"

"No."

"Perhaps you've lived a little while there?"

He was looking amused.

"No."

"Perhaps you've stayed for heaps of visits there?"

"No."

"Perhaps you've stayed for just a few little visits?"

"No."

Sheila Pat stared in disappointed wonder.

"Haven't you ever been there at all?"

"Never set foot in it."

"Oh!"

Presently, "Well, you're not at all bad—for England."

"England," quoth he, gravely, "is the finest country in the world!"

The Atom's eyes and mouth opened incredulously; a swift rush of delicate pink dyed her face.

"You—you're forgettin' Ireland!" she gasped.

"Not at all. I believe Ireland's a very decent little place."

"Decent, is it?"—the Atom forgot her dusting—"I'm just s'prised a big boy like you should be such a—a hignoramous!"

She waited proudly, then pursued, her voice trembling with earnestness: "You're all the same—you English! You're jealous of us! You—oh, you're all stupid donkeys!"

It was a downfall from eloquence to rude vituperation. But she was, for the moment, beyond realisation of that. She stood waiting, her eyes shining. But interruption, in the form of Miss Kezia, broke in on Ted's answer, and the discussion had to be postponed for the present. Miss Kezia was somewhat amused, in a dry sort of way, at their room-cleaning. She shrugged her shoulders over it; if they liked to amuse themselves that way, it did no harm, and work never yet hurt anyone. She asked Ted to stay to luncheon, and he accepted. He seemed to enjoy the roast beef and jam roly pudding. He talked courteously to Miss Kezia, he skirmished with the Atom, but he avoided Nell's eyes.

Nell seemed absent-minded, sunk in thought. After luncheon in the hall she seized an opportunity and approached him.

"I—I want to beg your pardon," she said stiffly, "for—for that night—"

"Oh—ah—awfully good of you—good-bye! I say, O'Brien, you'll be late at the bank—I mean," glancing swiftly at her and away again, "not at all—of course—" He was out of the hall door, hustling in front of Denis, down the steps, and into the street.

"You're in a hurry, aren't you?" observed Denis, mildly surprised.

"Er—yes." He turned his red face away, and strode on.

Nell went up to the Stronghold, smiling unwillingly. She felt as if she had known him for years, and she resented the feeling. She told herself that it was most annoying—his having come in just that morning when they were cleaning out the room; it was most unfortunate, for how could anyone be politely distant and dignified under such circumstances? And of course sweeping and laughing and having jokes made you feel as if you had known a person for quite a long while—even an objectionable person like this Ted Lancaster, who spent his time lounging about and doing nothing except visit his tailor. She was quite sure he visited his tailor a great deal. And he preferred a motor-car to horses! By the time she reached the Stronghold she was frowning.

"Sheila Pat, come and write your dictation."

"Nell," the Atom observed as she sat her down, "I'm very sorry for that poor boy."

"Why?"

"He's never been in Ireland, Nell!"

"Well, so haven't lots of other people."

"I don't mind about them, but I like that boy, and all these wicked men in Parlymint have—diseased his mind about Ireland! I have forgave all the nasty things he said because I'm so sorry for him, poor boy. And you see," patronisingly, "he doesn't know anythin' about it."

"He's not a bit good-looking," observed Molly irrelevantly; "he's got rather a big nose."

"Molly O'Brien, you're none so beautiful yourself that you need be rude about other persons' noses," severely. "That boy's the best I've seen in this London yet!"

"What queer taste you have, Sheila Pat!" said Nell, with a curl of her lip.

The Atom did not heed her. She was sunk deep in thought.

"I like him," she remarked after a while thoughtfully. "Sure I wouldn't mind him about—when it's mistletoe time!"

CHAPTER X

Miss Kezia put her latch-key into the lock in a serene frame of mind. She had spent a morning in giving advice. In any case that was a way congenial to her of spending her time. Moreover, on this occasion her advice had been taken; all the bare, unsweetened pills concocted of her wisdom had been swallowed unmurmuringly. Miss Kezia smiled decorously as she stood on her doorstep. Then she opened the door, and was greeted with an emphatic: "Git out, you old meddlar! D'you hear? Git out!"

The shock to her was considerable; it was the more considerable that it came on top of her advice-given-and-taken morning.

She paused, her hand on the latch of the door. She had a confused impression that her Irish relatives were showing her a new side of their character; the voice had come from the Stronghold. Hitherto, however noisy, however tiresome, they had not been rude. Indeed, their soft manners had oftentimes riled her, she being unable, in her rough austerity, to disconnect the softness altogether from insincerity.

She was not an imaginative woman; her mind was not formed even to comprehend, or make allowance for, the quality of imagination in another. But as her bonnet slowly rose from her head, she felt suddenly as if she had been precipitated into an evil dream. For a moment the solid aspect of everyday life, in which she moved and had her being, lost its common-sense reality. She merely stood, feeling her bonnet rise. Then, with a sudden angry gesture, she put up her hand to her head. It encountered another hand, a little, soft, cold hand; gentle little flabby fingers clung round hers, and even Miss Kezia's strong nerves received a severe jar. She had no belief in ghosts, in spirits, or any of "that sort of rubbish," under which designation she lumped many occult subjects together, but a little gentle hand in mid-air, clasping hers, was somewhat disconcerting even to her well-balanced mind. She glanced up hurriedly, feeling suddenly very hot. She saw nothing. She gazed, with a sort of angry anxiety, round the little hall. The two chairs stood there as usual; the hat-stand looked no different. Mechanically she counted, seizing unconsciously and with relief on the everyday hats and coats. There was Herr Schmidt's bowler and Denis's cap and coat. Her eye was arrested suddenly; from out the coat a little wizened face looked down at her, inimitably wise, inimitably sad. Miss Kezia took a step towards it; a long lean arm came softly out in the direction of her bonnet. She drew back and went towards the stairs.

"Hulloa!" shouted a voice. "By Jove, ain't she a disy! Oh, Lor'!" The voice broke suddenly into shrieks of laughter. It was such intensely rude laughter that Miss Kezia reddened hotly, and almost shrank, for a moment, from it. The plaintive, long-drawn miaow of a cat rose above the laughter. Howls—sudden, frenzied wails of woe rose above both. Miss Kezia went upstairs and entered the Stronghold.

As she opened the door something darted past her. There was a wild shouting: "Shut the door! He's gone! Look out, she'll be off, too!" Miss Kezia felt herself being pushed unceremoniously to one side; there was a bang of the door, and she found herself alone in the Stronghold. She drew her hand across her forehead.

"Oh, Lor', here's the disy!"

Miss Kezia positively jumped; she jumped quite badly. She found herself staring into a grey old face, into a pair of eyes that seemed to have looked into all the wickedness of the world. She was not alone in the Stronghold. A grey parrot sat on the back of a chair and returned her gaze with an insolent sang froid.

"Get out!" he adjured her. "You're a disy, you are!"

The dissipated wrinkles round his old eyes added to his blasé air of knowing all things.

"Old meddlar!" he screamed at her in sudden anger. "Old meddlar,—meddlar-meddlar-meddlar," and he sank into sudden heavy silence. He was a particularly ugly specimen of his kind; he was scarce of feathers, on his poll there was a nasty wound, and one leg had very obviously at some time been broken and very badly reset. His self-admiration, nevertheless, was so absurdly apparent that it raised an intense irritation in Miss Kezia's mind. His air of superiority was aggressive; his little beady eye told her she was dirt. They stared at each other. Then Miss Kezia's attention was drawn suddenly to a box on the table. Under the circumstances she was not really much surprised to observe that its lid was slowly rising. Across her mind there flitted, with a vague discomfort, the memory of Irish superstition, of the Irish belief in fairies and "such rubbish." She gave herself an angry shake and approached the box. As she did so a small brown head appeared in the aperture, a small brown body followed it, and a thin little mouse scudded across the table and disappeared. Miss Kezia waged a deadly war with mice; the faintest suggestion of a nibble anywhere in the house resulted in traps—a whole army of traps—up and down stairs. But now she stood and watched mouse after mouse push up the box lid, alight on the table with a little thud, and disappear. She counted six mechanically, and then she awoke to full realisation of the enormity of what was happening. She approached the box, and with a firm hand pushed down the lid and put a heavy book upon it. Of the fact that the box was empty she remained in ignorance. Then she opened the door and went out on to the landing. She looked down into the hall, and beheld the decorous Sarah, capless, wispy, her apron torn, standing upon one of the staid hall chairs and screaming. Perhaps that gave Miss Kezia as severe a shock as any she had yet received. But it also acted as a swift and very emphatic brain-clearer. No douche of cold water was ever more effective in its action.

"Sarah!"

Now Sarah had not been aware of the fact that her mistress was within the house. The knowledge, sudden and grim, found her quite unprepared, and coming, as it did, a climax on top of mice, monkeys, cats, dogs, parrots, tortoises, was too much for her equilibrium. Sarah fell with a clatter and a scream, and took the staid hall chair with her. She also took two umbrellas and a puppy. The puppy burst into howls and Sarah burst into tears. Each made a considerable noise, and a mouse fled appalled into Herr Schmidt's bowler. Some of the O'Briens appeared from the kitchen (Molly had apparently been embracing the coal box).

"Here's the puppy!"

The joy in Sheila Pat's shout was the finishing touch to Miss Kezia's wrath. It fairly blazed forth; she excelled herself. Her audience consisted chiefly of Sarah, still weeping; Molly, also weeping; and the wise-faced monkey, who sat in Denis's coat collar and listened with sad attention. For the rest Denis and Nell and the Atom appeared and disappeared at intervals in pursuit of the puppy, the cat, and the mice. Miss Kezia's peroration was eloquent; wrath lent it fire. But her eloquence began to fail at last, and then she demanded an explanation. Unfortunately, only Molly and Sarah were present at that point. Molly essayed an explanation, but evolved only the following:—

"We—we didn't mean—it—we didn't. They—they—oh—poor little things—all cramped up—the—the cages were smaller—than themselves—we—we—we—"

Then Miss Kezia said something that was not at all like her usual method of speech. In a voice thin and rasped with irritation and much eloquence, she observed:—

"Apparently you think you are a pig! Eileen! Eileen! I command you to come here!"

Nell, a struggling puppy in her arms, stopped short. She was breathless, untidy, and hilarious.

"We've got them all now, except three of the mice," she added.

The jet ornament in Miss Kezia's bonnet quivered spasmodically.

"Perhaps you will condescend to explain now how it happens that you have turned my house into a menagerie," she said.

Nell sat down on the lowest stair and kissed the puppy's ugly little head.

"We are going to send them all to Kilbrannan, Aunt Kezia. Duckie, stay still then! You see—"

"You cannot send the missing mice away! They will overrun my house."

"They'll have plenty of room, anyway! If you had seen the cages, Aunt Kezia! This blessed puppy—"

"Was in a cage smaller than himself! I have heard that already." There was sarcasm in her tone that was completely lost on Nell.

"Yes! Just imagine! Oh, we just had to buy them all. And that poor parrot was eating out of an empty pan! It was cruel! We just went in and bought them all."

"Bought—them—all!" Miss Kezia echoed her words quite faintly.

"You paid for these—these creatures!"

"Why, yes! It was a horrid little shop, half full of papers and magazines, half full of tobacco and pipes, and half full of these poor dears. Of course it was a good deal of money, but what were we to do? It was Jim who cost the most—oh, Denis, have you got the rest of the mice?"

"This beast of a midnight caroller has scratched a hunk of flesh out of my hand, and all because I saved a mouse from her cattish jaws!"

He was holding a thin and mangy tabby cat at arm's length.

"Why didn't you let her catch it? It is perfectly ridiculous to be so childish at your age!" Poor Miss Kezia could not find words to express her utter disapproval and want of understanding.

"Well," observed Denis, "'twould be playing it pretty low to buy half-a-dozen tame mice and give 'em to the cat. I expect, if their opinion were asked, you'd find they preferred even the old Jew's cage to the cat's interior."

Miss Kezia gave some final directions; there was a subdued fury in eye and voice due as much to her inadequacy to the occasion as to her anger at the havoc wrought in her well-ordered house. The monkey coughed softly, and Sarah, still weeping in the background, screamed. Sheila Pat appeared, climbed on to a chair, and lifted the monkey down. The monkey put a thin arm round her neck in a horribly human way. Sheila Pat kissed his face, and Miss Kezia called out in irrepressible horror.

"I love him," the Atom said calmly. "He's just 'zact like my dearrest Patsy O'Driscoll."

The monkey's bright little eyes blinked knowingly.

"I believe he's a first cousin," Denis declared. "Ever been to Kilbrannan, old man? Played hand-ball on summer evenings on Patsy's wall, eh? Driven Kate in the jaunting-car? D'you know the road up-along by Dinny O'Sullivan's? Sure ye'll be meetin' the doctor's house to the west—ah, yes, thin, ye're knowin' that all right. Look at him smiling, Nell!"

Miss Kezia turned a stiff back upon them and walked into her bedroom.

"She doesn't appreciate you, Jim."

Jim coughed delicately. It was a funny little soft deprecating cough.

"He is just like Patsy," Nell said. "If we were to dress him up and put him on the box seat of the jaunting-car, he'd be acknowledged by his own mother!"

Miss Kezia's bedroom door was opened.

"You will please to send off all those creatures to-day—and at once!"

It was several hours before her mandate was obeyed. The packing took a considerable time. During those hours the monkey crept more and more into their affections.

"I think," opined Nell, "it's positively wicked to send him on a long, cold journey with a nasty little cough like that!"

"I shall feel as if I'm murdering one of my own relations," Denis agreed.

Sheila Pat put a protecting arm round the monkey.

"Jimmy O'Driscoll," Denis said suddenly, "you have an artful countenance. Could you make yourself scarce whenever our respected aunt appeared on the scene? James, could you remember to remember that you're actually and bodily in Kilbrannan?"

"Oh, Denis!" Sheila Pat broke in ecstatically. "Oh, I do love Patsy's cousin!"

That night Miss Kezia said, "I am thankful that your pets have left my house, and I beg that you will not spend your money in that ridiculous and wicked way again!" There was a sarcastic inflexion on the word "pets."

CHAPTER XI

Denis stood upon a chair and declaimed. His audience consisted of Sheila Pat and Jim O'Driscoll.

"'Literature of the Elizabethan Period.' Pause, Sheila Pat, with an inward gaze. By the way, how d'you gaze at your innards? Then you fling back your hair," he tried ridiculously to fling back his short locks. "Meant to let them grow long for the happy occasion. Then you begin: 'The Elizabethan Period was one of grand, of glorious prolificacy in the realms of literature. What names the mere mention of the period conjures up, names that still ring, and will always ring'—ha! ha! ha!"

He doubled up with sudden laughter. Jim, squatting in a chair, eyed him with the same grave attention that he had given to the opening of the speech. He was an earnest, if not a particularly appreciative, audience.

Sheila Pat demanded, "What are you laughin' at?"

"I saw old Lancaster's face suddenly. He's dangerous. His scowl's enough to turn the sunshine into a black frost. But he won't back out now. He's too jolly obstinate. You should have seen his face when Yovil told us his sister had persuaded him to make the evening a bigger affair and invite ladies too. And his 'naughty little cuss words,' Atom! What d'you think he said about your sex too? He said: 'What meddlers women are! Why must they have their fingers in everyone's pie?' Why, James there would be more gallant!"

Sheila Pat did not respond to his nonsense. She said sombrely, "I'm comin' to hear you speak, Denis O'Brien."

"Sorry, old girl, but the invitation's only for Nell, you know."

She shut her mouth obstinately.

Denis approached Jim.

"Jim, what have you got in your mouth?"

The monkey, in a flutter of fear, opened his mouth and shot out a piece of india rubber, a small tube of paint, a button off the chair, and a thimble. He had a habit of putting things in his mouth and carrying them about with him. Denis had taught him already to give them up. As the thimble rolled on to the chair, Jim sprang away, up the curtains, and sat glowering down from the curtain rod.

"He asked Aunt Kezia to come," Sheila Pat said.

"But when he heard that—ahem—unfortunately she was engaged for that evening, he said he hoped I'd bring my sister myself,—only mentioned one sister, you see. Fact is, he's full up—afraid his drawing-room won't hold them all."

The Atom stared out of the window. Jim, having, with a good deal of ingenuity, extricated a curtain hook, dropped it on her head. She shook it off impatiently. Jim watched, peering impishly over the curtain rail.

"I'm awfully sorry, asthore,"—Denis pulled her pig-tail lovingly—"shall I put you in my pocket?"

"I will hear you speak," the Atom said.

"Well, I'll recite my speech to you and Jim here. Nell was saying she wishes you'd take her place."

"Don't be silly, Denis."

A measured step approached the door.

"Aunt Kezia—and Jim not in his cage!" he ejaculated, and strode to the door.

He glanced back at Jim—a dim little outline in the curtain. "If only he stays there!"

He swung out on to the landing, nearly upsetting Miss Kezia.

"I wish to see Molly," she said.

"Molly? She's not in there, Aunt Kezia."

"One of my boots is missing. I conclude that Molly, for some purpose of her own, has taken it." She moved towards him and the door.

"Don't you trouble," he besought her; "you go and finish getting ready. I'll find Molly and ask her."

"I prefer to look for myself."

She entered the Stronghold and gazed around.

Jim peered inquisitively at her over the curtain top. Denis frowned at him and shook his head.

"There is my boot!" Miss Kezia dragged a large and solid boot from beneath a chair. "Well!" she ejaculated, and the amount of indignation she managed to compress into that one word was terrific. She held up the boot—there was not a button left on it. But on the floor, ranged in a neat little line, sat ten black buttons. The absolute regularity of the line, the precision and neatness, somehow seemed to aggravate the offence.

"I—I would like to whip Molly!"

Miss Kezia's accents were not so judicial as usual; there was a hurried, almost a pathetic, note about them. She was at a loss. "I will find Molly," she said with dire meaning, and stalked towards the door.

"I'll find her for you!" Denis exclaimed, and brushed past her. When the door was shut, Sheila Pat, with a smile for what had occurred, went back to the window and her thoughts.

Jim crept stealthily down the curtain and across to the boot buttons, which had been scattered by Miss Kezia's angry toe. He picked them up, one by one, and laid them in a neat little row again. Then he sat and regarded them with his head on one side.

Sheila Pat's solitude was invaded presently by a very injured and tearful Molly.

"She thinks I'm mad! And he isn't worth it! I'm to—to sew them all on myself! I can't!"

Sheila Pat rose suddenly and left the room. She went into her bedroom.. It was a bright, cold day with a brilliant sun sparkling on a fast-disappearing frost. But Sheila Pat donned a dark blue raincoat. She looked down with satisfaction on the neat little ankles and feet that were all that emerged from that end. From the other end, above an intensely sporting turned-up collar, her small face looked out with a weighty seriousness. She put on a dark blue peaked sort of cap, also rain proof, slipped downstairs, and left the house. With her hands in big pockets, she walked staidly down the road, a quaint little exceedingly tailorish figure. She stopped to accost a grey cob in a milkman's cart, and on the milkman's appearing from a house fell into conversation with him. Suddenly she broke out, appealingly young and eager in spite of her coat:—

"Might I—oh, please might I get in and hold the reins while you're in the houses?"

He appeared to hesitate.

"It—" a little choke jostled the words—"it's weeks and weeks since I've held the reins!"

The milkman glanced dubiously down at the very small Atom, then at his quiet old cob, and assented. As he politely helped her in he felt the little tremor that shook her, but he did not understand it. He smiled surprisedly at the workmanlike way in which she gathered up the reins. He nodded kindly into the suddenly joyous face uplifted to his. Sheila Pat let out a great big breath and clucked softly to the cob.

"Plenty of work in him yet," she observed conversationally. "Pretty shrewd, too," with a proud little laugh as the cob stopped outside a house.

"He knows the houses I supply as well as I do, miss."

On his rejoining her, "Any special fad?" she asked.

"Well, he's steady-going as a rule, miss,—don't mind motors, or trains, or stone-crushers a bit,—but it's a funny thing he can't stand wheelbarrers! Shies at 'em quite skittish."

Sheila Pat listened with absorbed interest. The milkman came to the last house on his list, and she drove him in style to the dairy. The conversation on the way was strictly horsey. As they drew up she mentioned where she was going.

"Mr. Yovil? Oh, we supply him. I'll take you there, miss; it's close by."

So it came about that Mr. Mark Yovil, looking forth from his study window, beheld his milkman driven to his gate by a very small and very dignified driver, who, after bidding the cob a lingering and loving farewell, shook hands with the milkman, and entered Mr. Yovil's gate.

A few minutes later a rigidly grave maid announced: "Miss Sheila Patricia Kathleen O'Brien," and the Atom walked in.

"How-do-you-do? I am the sister of Denis O'Brien."

Mr. Yovil took off his glasses and polished them with his handkerchief, then he fixed them on the brown and bumpy bridge of his nose, and regarded her through them.

"I'm sure I'm very pleased to see you," he said in a particularly charming voice. Sheila Pat would never have dreamt how exceedingly curt and cutting that voice could be. "Pray sit down."

"Thank you."

There was a pause, while he watched her pulling down her long coat over her ankles.

"You see, I've come on business," she said presently, looking up straight into his face.

"Oh, indeed. I'm afraid," with a comical shake of his bristly head, "I'm not much good on business matters."

"It's not about money at all. I—" there was just a tiny pause—"I want to know if you—if you would engage me as an extra hand on next Wednesday."

"An—extra—hand?"

A little pink signal of distress lest he laugh at her flamed in her cheek.

"You see," the staid voice grew hurried, "I'm rather small for my age. I'm not really very young. I'm quite six and fourteen weeks, and I—I'm 'ceptionally strong. I could wash the plates and knives and forks, and—and run errings—and fill the water jugs. I'd do anythin', and I wouldn't want any wages. The only stippleation I'd make is that I might listen in a corner to Denis's speech."

"It's very kind of you," the dark eyes behind the glasses were twinkling a good deal, "but I really do not need an—er—extra hand."

There was a pause. Sheila Pat swallowed twice, quite loudly.

"P'raps," tremulous hope sounded in her voice, "p'raps you'd like me to show people to their seats?"

"N-no," he said slowly, "I really don't think there's any office I need filling."

He stared distressed at the woeful face of Sheila Pat. He polished his glasses with a queer nervousness, this quick-tempered little man before whom so many grown-ups had trembled.

"I—" with a trembling burst of desperation, "I could fill the coal skuttles!"

He came over and, drawing up a chair, sat down beside her.

"Will you tell me why you want to—er—fulfil all these menial offices?" he asked gently.

She slid off her chair.

"It was to hear Denis, you see. Good-bye, Mr. Yovil."

"But—why not come with your brother?"

"Nell's comin', and you're full up. Molly doesn't want to, anyway, because there'd be so many boys starin'."

"I shall be very much hurt if you don't come, too."

A little flush rose to her cheeks.

"I'm not wishin' to intrude, thank you; I wasn't askin' for that! Only, you see, I thought if I could be an extra hand, that would do."

He took the hand extended to him, and with his other rubbed his brow wildly. He realised that nothing would induce his small companion to come on the Wednesday merely as a visitor. He stared at her in comical distress.

"Good-bye," he said absently.

As she reached the door he gave a jubilant shout.

"Could you be my Social Prompter, do you think?"

She turned back.

"Yes," she said. "What is it?"

He smiled.

"Come and sit down again. There, that's right. Oh, I shall want a Social Prompter that evening!" he gave a quizzical little chuckle. "Now listen, my dear. I'm a rude man. Oh, yes, I am," as she politely refuted his statement. "A good many ladies have told me so. I never speak to the people I should speak to, and I speak to those I shouldn't. Well, there will be a good many ladies present on Wednesday, and I must speak to them all and I must say just about as many words to one as the other. Now, my sister was to have been hostess, and she gives me a sign whom I'm to accost next, and so on. But her little boy has the measles, and she won't come up to town. Do you see?"

"Oh, yes!" Sheila Pat's face was intent. "I'll turn up my nose at the ladies you've spoken to, and smile at the ones you haven't."

"Well—hardly that. The ladies whom you turned your nose up at might be hurt, you know. Let me see, now. I think if you come quietly up to me every now and then, and suggest what group I shall join— How will that do?"

"Yes," said Sheila Pat. She put out her hand and gave his arm an ecstatic little squeeze.

"I did want to see Denis get the prize."

"But perhaps he won't."

"Oh, yes, he will. He's Irish, you see. Good-bye. I'm very much 'bliged."

"Not at all. It's I who should say that. I'm coming out. We'll start together."

With infinite tact he invented the need of tobacco, because he knew there was a tobacconist's near the top of Henley Road. He never smoked any but a particular brand that he procured at a particular shop, and that evening his man was gratified by the present of a tin of tobacco.

He bade the Atom good-bye at the top of her road, and looking after the sedate little back, he smiled. Such an immense dignity was there in that small back view of Sheila Pat that it was difficult to associate her with the severe scolding to which she knew she was walking.

CHAPTER XII

"Four half crowns is ten bob. Sarah, if ever I catch you carrying that heavy coal-box up to our room again, I'll give you a month's warning and pack you off without a day's notice!

"Nell," entering the Stronghold, "to-day is Saturday. Old Tellbridge, gazing at my interesting countenance, pale from overwork and perhaps tired of my unfortunate method of making two and two tot up to five or three, let me off early. The pit of a theatre is peopled nowadays by a most respectable and worthy—"

"A theatre? Oh, Denis! Which? What?"

"My dears, do not shout. 'Tis vulgar. You've heard of a play called 'Monsieur Beaucaire.' Softly—softly. And James, there are no—er—butterflies in K.K.'s coat, I assure you. Yes, Atom, we are going! Yes, we must start at once! Lancaster says it's going very strong. We'll have to wait outside ages. As our aunt is not at home, I would suggest a raid on the kitchen, and then flight."

Nell said demurely:—

"Yesterday Aunt Kezia was holding forth on the vulgarity of any but grocers' assistants and 'sich-like' waiting in a queue outside a theatre."

Down in the kitchen a scandalised Sarah looked on while they "foraged." She held a table-cloth in one hand and two table napkins in the other. Agitatedly she sought to thrust them upon the O'Briens, while they sat on the table and ate cold jam-tart, bread and cheese, and apples. Later, as they hurried out of the gate—Molly, gloveless, working her arms into her coat—she called after them:—

"You'll be faint with 'unger, missansir!"

On the omnibus Molly discovered that she had brought odd gloves with her.

As they drew near the theatre they were overcome with a sudden fear that they would be too late to get seats in the front row and they scrambled anyhow down the omnibus steps. Sheila Pat took a flying leap that brought down upon her shouts from the conductor and from the drivers of two cabs. The Atom, safe and sound on the curb, drew herself up with dignity.

"Really, in this London a person can't do a thing at all, without being interfered with!"

Then they ran. When they arrived at the theatre, they found only about ten people there before them. Denis assured them they would get front-row seats, and they exulted.

The long wait did not seem long to them. But their money flew. There was the poor man who tied himself into horrible knots; the newspaper boy, who had blue eyes, and whom they thought might be Irish. When he thanked them for the sixpence, his Cockney accent shattered their hopes. They gave pennies to the little pink-nosed boy whose sister played the flageolet, and to an old man who sang.

Then the move began. A very big man directly behind Sheila Pat looked down amusedly at that excessively small, but excessively determined young person. He recognised the fact that the Atom meant no one to push in front of her. In the front row Sheila Pat sat her down, and looked around, quivering with excitement.

Just before the curtain went up Ted Lancaster strolled into the stalls, and sat down in front of the Atom. She bent forward and dug eager little fingers into his shoulder.