THE YOUNG O'BRIENS (continued 3)

"Won't you be speakin' to me at all, then, Mr. Lancaster?"

He turned.

"Why, it's my lit—my Irish friend! How-do-you-do, Miss O'Brien?"

"Oh, please," said Sheila Pat, "is there anyone Irish in the play?"

"I'm afraid not. But you'll lose your heart to Monsieur Beaucaire, though he's only a Frenchman!"

She shook an obstinate head.

"I won't!"

At the end of the first act he turned to her. A little faint pink colour dyed her cheeks, her eyes were wide and bright.

"Well? How about your heart?"

"I—I haven't! I won't!"

"I love him!" said Molly. "And oh, I loathe that wicked Duke of Winterset!"

When the curtain went down at the end of the first scene of the second act, he turned to her again. Her eyes were brighter, her cheeks pinker than before. She refused to look at him.

"It's only two minutes," Ted said. "Miss Sheila Patricia?" he finished with an uplifting of brows.

"I—I haven't! You are a very intruding boy!"

The curtain went up, and he turned away.

The moment when she finally and absolutely and openly capitulated was when Monsieur Beaucaire came down the stairs, taking the old Countess of Greenbury to supper. In the midst of the storm of applause, one ecstatic little voice rang out.

"He's worthy to be Irish, anyway!"

As they went out Molly managed to become separated from them and lost.

Denis said, "You stay out here with Lancaster," and plunged back into the crowd.

Sheila Pat, excited, too restless to stand still, plunged eagerly after him.

Nell was left standing with Ted. Now Ted Lancaster was possessed of some physical attributes that particularly displeased Nell, as being so ridiculously untrue to his character. She fell to pondering the strength of his rather thin mouth and of his chin; on the look of cleverness about his deep-set eyes. The very breadth of his shoulders displeased her. She told herself that a slack creature such as he must be, who lounged about and did nothing except drive in a motor, had no business with a face like his. Irritatedly she fought against a strong inclination to like him.

"Isn't your motor waiting for you?" she broke the silence in a bland tone of voice.

"No." He sounded a little surprised. "There're always hansoms, you know," he added.

"Oh! But you prefer your motor, don't you?"

He gave her a quick, shrewd glance; there was just the suspicion of a smile at the corners of his lips as he answered carelessly:—

"Well, they get you along quicker, you know."

"Yes," she said, "and of course when you've a lot to do—when you are very busy—that's a consideration."

There was a little pause. She glanced at him and smiled maliciously. He had flushed a little.

"Yes," he agreed nonchalantly.

She watched three women frantically tearing about in search of a hansom, but she was thinking of Ted. What a cool voice he had! She wasn't sure that it wasn't impertinent. And as for his looking tired and ill—well, of course he would, living an unhealthy, self-indulgent, lazy life. Suddenly she began to contrast his mode of life with Denis's before they had left Kilbrannan. Impulsively she spoke her thoughts aloud, keeping, in actual words, only to Denis, his prowess in the hunting field, football, and so on; but her expressive voice and face pointed the moral, drew the contrast, as plainly as if she had spoken it. There was another pause when she stopped.

Then Denis appeared with the others. The relief in her welcome was unmistakable.

"Got her! She was rushing off in a frenzy straight for the North Pole! You're not going, Lancaster? Rot! Come along with us, old chap, and be introduced to Jimmy O'Driscoll."

Ted glanced at Nell; it was an odd glance, and his mouth twisted in a sudden dry smile.

"Yes, won't you?" she said carelessly.

"Thanks, no, I've to meet a fellow!"

He raised his hat and walked away.

Sarah let them in at No. 35. She looked scared and spoke in a loud whisper.

"Oh, missansir, there's been murder done as sure as my name's Sarah Jones! Hush! She's in! The poor little dog! Its dying 'owls were pitiful! I allus knew that unchristian monkey-thing would do us a 'arm!"

She managed to work on their feelings to a certain extent, although they knew that Jim had conceived a deep affection for Kate Kearney, which that young person returned with a disdainful and bullying sort of tolerance. They hurried up to the Stronghold, Denis produced the key, and they opened the door. The room presented a somewhat chaotic appearance; bits of Denis's slippers strewed the floor; a fur rug distributed itself in bunches round the room; the table-cloth had been pulled off, and with it various books, papers, and a bowl of chrysanthemums. With the chaos a dead silence greeted them; they could see neither Kate Kearney nor Jim O'Driscoll.

Molly gasped:—

"Oh—they're both killed!"

Behind the easy chair they sat, two little mute, obstinate figures, palpably worn out, and each still holding on grimly to a battered thing of felt and ribbon that once had been a hat of Nell's. In Jim's thin little hands, as they gripped the hat, bunches of black fur were discernible, which told a tale. At their approach K.K. arose, panting, and renewed the struggle. She was very strong and Jim was very small. With her teeth fixed firmly in the felt, she pulled and pulled, backing all round the room, and at the other end of the hat came Jim, hopping, sliding, but never letting his hold slip. His pathetic little wizened face added to the ludicrousness of the spectacle. In the end Denis bethought him brilliantly of a way to end the struggle with fairness to both sides. He took a knife and sawed Nell's hat in halves. Immediately each went straight for the piece the other held, and as each dropped its own piece, Nell picked them up, and the battle was perforce at an end.

Jim fled, chattering with rage, to the top of the curtain, and Kate Kearney had resort to what no doubt she would have termed a hurt dignity, but what looked considerably like a fit of the sulks.

"Now," said Denis, "how did that little beggar undo his cage door?"

Nell said, still laughing:—

"It's just struck me that it's rather hard on my hat!"

CHAPTER XIII

Denis was immersed, fathoms deep, in unutterable gloom. It was the all-important day, at last. That morning he had risen in wild spirits. "Don't believe my poor old essay is so bad after all! Anyhow, what's it matter?"

At luncheon time he was still hilarious; at tea time down, down in the depths. His thermometer had been very much like that in regard to his speech, up and down, down and up, for the past week.

"It's tea time, Denis."

"All right." He glanced up from his notes with his eyebrows up, his forehead wrinkled. "T'won't make any difference whether I go on reading up or not—it's awful rot, anyway."

"It's grand," declared Sheila Pat, and the Pearl chattered his teeth angrily at the enthusiastic squeeze she gave him.

"Don't lose heart, Denis, it's a fine speech," said Nell.

"It's stiff—stilted," he said, frowning.

She flushed; he had put her own secret fear into words.

"I'm quite sure you will get the prize," remarked Stewart, who had been invited to tea. He spoke with deep earnestness; he had an intense admiration for Denis.

But Denis sat glum and gloomy while they pressed bread and butter on him, and Stewart made him a slice of French toast. Then suddenly he looked up, and he burst out laughing.

"Oh, how you're all waiting on Sir Doldrums Gloomy-grump! Look at the noble Stewart's flushed countenance, reddened in my unworthy service! Not another word on literature! Let's forget that such things as speeches exist!"

But presently he began to laugh again:—

"I'm thinking of poor old Lancaster. Saw him this afternoon—talk about gloom! He was in a vile temper! 'Pretty lot of fools we'll look! But I deserve all I get!' he growled, and off he marched, though I wanted to speak to him particularly!"

While they were dressing, Stewart slipped away next door.

He reappeared, oddly red and shy.

Sheila Pat, in short white petticoat and stockinged feet, met him on the landing.

"Where have you been, Tommy?"

"Just home."

"What's the matter, Tommy?"

"Nothing!"

Sheila Pat considered him gravely.

"Your face is very red."

"Rot!"

"And why are you keepin' your hand behind you?"

"Want to!"

She made a dart, but he turned, too. Round and round they went, and she won. She was too quick and elf-like for him.

"Oh!" she said. "It's a red rose. Is it for Nell?"

"No!"

"Is it for me?"

"If—if you like—you can have it!"

"Oh, yes, please, Tommy."

He held it out to her, a lovely deep red rose with a spray of maiden hair.

"I'll pin it in front of my dress, Tommy, and I'll look so nice, won't I? Janie and Benny Jones are comin' to look at us when we're dressed."

"Sheila Pat! Sheila Pat!"

She slipped away from him.

Presently she reappeared in the Stronghold.

"Tommy, don't you think—with my button-hole and all—I might be seven?"

Stewart looked at her in her little loose, short white frock; at her long, slim legs and little white heelless shoes.

"Don't look at my legs!" she breathed.

"Ten!" he said unblinkingly.

"Oh, Tommy! I do so want to look old to-night! It's very erportant—what I've got to do! And I'll put some cakes in my pocket for you."

Nell ran past the room and upstairs to see how Denis was getting on. He had lost his collar stud. She found it for him; she put it in for him; she sewed the bow on to his shoe; she rearranged his tie; helped him on with his coat, and all he said in thanks was:—

"Oh, Jemima! how I pity the poor chap who marries you!"

Nell pulled her hair a trifle looser, using his glass. She turned on him, young, slim, radiantly pretty. "Do you?" she laughed. "I'll be an old maid, then!"

"You do look stunning, old girl! Bet I'll have the prettiest sister there to-night."

"Oh, I do believe you carry a chip of the blarney stone about with you. Come down and let Janie and Benny look at you. Denis, there's a most delicious scent in this room. What is it?"

"Eh? Oh, a bit of lily of the valley I thought you might like. It's on the wash-hand stand."

He whistled a bar of "Widow Macree."

"Oh, Denis!" She was holding up a lovely bunch of lilies of the valley to her cheek.

He turned with sudden irritation.

"Don't start about it's being extravagant! It isn't! If you say a word, I'll chuck 'em in the dust-bin!"

She smiled demurely. The flowers had been behind the water-jug, with a suspicious air of having been hidden there.

"They're lovely," she said, tucking them into her soft folded belt. "I must pin them in. Are you coming, twin?"

"If it weren't for taking you two, I wouldn't come at all."

"Oh, yes, you would."

"What's the good? I haven't a ghost of a chance—"

"If you knew you were bound to make the worst speech there," her head was up, "you would go. We never funk anything, Denis!"

"Neither we do, old lady!"

He seized her round the waist and ran her downstairs to her room.

"Nell," called out the Atom, "aren't you ready? Janie and Benny have come!"

"O dear, then hurry I must! Molly, I wish you were coming, too!"

"I don't! I wouldn't for anything," she whispered eagerly. "I shall go and talk to Aunt Kezia!"

"Molly, you're getting too good altogether for the likes of us! Don't, in your exaltation, forget to shut Jim up. Benny, what big eyes! Janie, how's the cold? Duckies, ask Sarah if we didn't leave two nice cakes at tea. Coming, Denis! Good-bye, Aunt Kezia. Molly, there's a packet of butter-scotch somewhere—find it for them. Good-bye!"

Mark Yovil greeted the Atom as an old friend.

"Of course," said Sheila Pat, anxiously, "I don't know which ladies you've spoke to before I came."

"Oh, that doesn't count," he reassured her.

Nell looked round the room interestedly. There were not many people there yet. Standing by a lounge talking to a girl with an elaborately dressed head of colourless hair, she saw Ted Lancaster. Another girl, younger, sat between her and an older, stouter edition of them both, obviously the mother. Nell had a quick thought of a hairdresser's shop, the three heads were so stiffly held, so carefully dressed. Then she wondered, humorously, whether the husband and father didn't get tired of seeing his wife in three stages of age and size.

"Will you come?" Mr. Yovil asked. "I'd like to introduce you to Mrs. Lancaster. She's Ted Lancaster's aunt, you know—he and your brother are chums, aren't they?"

"Y-yes."

Mrs. Lancaster bent a stiff head, Miss Lancaster and Miss Gertrude Lancaster did likewise. Ted shook hands.

"Is your brother going to make a speech?" Gertrude asked as Nell sat down beside her.

"Yes. When are they going to start?"

"I don't know. The whole thing is an awful bore, isn't it?"

"No; I love it."

"Really? Alicia," turning to her sister, "Miss O'Brien is actually enjoying herself!"

"Really? How queer! We only came because we thought dear Mr. Yovil would be hurt if we refused."

Up came Denis.

"I say, can't you squeeze me in somehow?"

Gertrude unbent and laughed as he sat down between her and Nell.

Sheila Pat, always earnest, trotted gravely at her host's heels till he released her. Even then she watched. He was standing talking to an imposing matron when he felt a sharp little nip on his arm. He looked down and met Sheila Pat's chiding eyes.

"You've spoken to her twice! I would have thought you'd remember her—by her nose!"

The whisper was loud; he muttered a hasty excuse and fled. But he fled in the wrong direction. After him ran Sheila Pat.

"You haven't spoken once to the lady in the bathing dress!"

In her eagerness her voice rose, and several pairs of eyes glanced instinctively across the room to where a lady in a red and white striped silk gown sat amiably looking on, and several people hid smiles.

"Ted isn't a bit nervous," Gertrude Lancaster confided to Nell. "He's quite calm and cool. Now, that poor Cuthbert Pennington who's just been introduced to you is all on wires about it."

Nell looked across to where Ted lounged, talking to an old gentleman.

"Is he convinced he'll win the prize?"

"Oh, I don't know. But nothing ever troubles him, I think. Can you catch his eye? I want to ask him about a dinner-party—I can't make him look this way!"

"Isn't it unkind to disturb him? He looks so comfortable."

"Oh, no—oh, that's it. Now he'll come."

He came slowly and stood before them.

"You want me?"

Gertrude chattered about an approaching dinner-party, then she turned to join in another conversation.

Ted stood silent.

Nell glanced up at him. "Nothing ever troubles him," rang in her ears. She frowned impatiently.

"Poor Mr. Pennington!" she said softly.

He glanced across at Pennington, surrounded, the centre of a noisy group, and raised his eyebrows.

"He's nervous about his speech. He," there was the faintest accent on the "he," "doesn't feel sure he will win the Shakespeare."

"How queer! Surely each one in his heart is convinced he'll pull it off!" There was an odd mocking note in his voice.

"Only the conceited ones!" she laughed.

There was a little pause.

She looked up at him, smiling.

"You feel as if you will win it, don't you?" she said amiably.

"Thanks. I take it, Miss O'Brien."

"The speeches are going to begin," observed Gertrude, turning round.

"I say," Cuthbert Pennington's dark face was trying to look injured, "they've made me go up first! Wish me luck! I'm a-trembling all over. Shouldn't wonder if I faint away in a swoond!"

His speech was good, bright, and vivacious, and sometimes humorous. There was a good deal of applause at its finish.

Nell felt terribly excited. She glanced often at Denis, who looked gay and debonnair enough.

The two next speeches were not so good; in both there was a stiffness of phrase that made her put them aside with a metaphoric wave of her hand. Then came the poetic Morley's turn. He was inclined to be grandiloquent, he brought in a great many poetical quotations, his metaphors were inclined to run away with him; but he used fervid gestures, he flung back his hair a good deal, and people seemed enthusiastic.

Nell felt uneasy; she did not herself care for his speech, but she recognised a good deal of merit in it.

Ted Lancaster was the next.

He rose and strolled slowly to the end of the room.

"Isn't he at his ease!" laughed Gertrude.

Nell was conscious of a quick, uncharitable wish that his speech should be bad—bad—that he should receive hardly any applause—that that conceited ease of his should be ruffled—upset. He bowed to his audience. A little hot spasm of shame went through her. Surely—surely he was nervous! His face was quite white, and his eyes stared out sombrely from beneath frowning brows.

"The Influence of Music on Mankind," he announced in his deep, quiet voice. He paused, looked down, then straight out before him again.

"It is impossible," he began, "to exaggerate—" his eyes met Nell's, he stumbled, stopped—"to exaggerate—er—er—the important part that—that music—that music—has played in the—er—history of the world—"

Nell was tingling all over with shame and pity; her cheeks burnt; she bit her lip cruelly. She could see his hand, resting on the top of the Grand piano beside him, shake; and then suddenly, abruptly, in the middle of a sentence, he bowed and strolled back to his seat.

There was an uncomfortable little silence. A few people clapped feebly.

"Oh," whispered Gertrude in Nell's ear, "poor Ted! He must have been nervous, after all!"

"You were rather ridiculously out in your opinion, weren't you?" retorted Nell, hotly.

"How could I know? He—"

Some one said, "Hush!" It was a red-cheeked boy with a twinkle in his eye, but it stopped Gertrude. Nell forgot Ted then, for it was Denis's turn next. Head erect, he marched to his place. Nell's hands locked themselves together; she hardly breathed; but when he turned and bowed she drew a sharp breath. Denis was nervous! He stood there, tall, broad-shouldered, his head flung back. His blue eyes looked very dark; his mouth was shut tightly. And he stood there, silent.

No one moved. No one seemed to breathe. The stillness was awful. Nell felt as if she would shriek aloud. Then suddenly his eyes met hers; a little flush rose to his brow: "Early morning—the world gleaming green and wet through the blue haze—all the young things waking and stirring about you—" his voice rang out, musical, assured, and left Nell gasping. Dimly, with his talk of the stream glinting in the sunshine, the scent of the turf fires, there mingled in her ears—"names that still ring throughout all the lands—a grand and awe-inspiring age—the literature of that day—" and the result was bewildering. And then she was leaning forward, drinking it all in—for here was a bit of their old life—of Kilbrannan—home itself. Something caught in her throat, and for a moment Denis shone through a mist.

Others were listening, too,—really listening,—absorbed, interested; grave and smiling by turns, as he willed. He stood there, before them all, unself-conscious, eager, making them see what he saw; and the words came without stumble or pause—easy, fluent, enthusiastic. It was just a bit of the old life he was showing them—a wild hunt made them laugh aloud; the peasants, the scenery, kept them absorbed; and when he stopped, there was a perfect storm of applause. The room fairly rang with it.

He glanced swiftly, anxiously, at Nell, and then he bowed with all his own airy grace, again and again, laughing outright. One of the boys shouted out, "Encore!"

There was only one speaker to come after Denis, and the unfortunate boy was received with yawns behind fans and barely concealed indifference.

Of course Denis had won the Shakespeare. He received it in a storm of clapping. Everyone smiled on him and paid him compliments. Unabashed, he deftly returned them with interest to the ladies. The defeated boys nearly shook his arm out of its socket. Sheila Pat forgot, for the time being, her duties as Social Prompter, and went about informing everyone that she was Denis's sister.

"He doesn't mind me pinching him a bit!" she said proudly.

But she remembered her duty presently, and when Mr. Yovil was talking to Nell, down swooped Sheila Pat.

"It's not her turn! I think you'd better go and talk to the jingle lady now."

He went, meek as a lamb.

"Nell," said Denis, coming up to her a moment, "no, I won't answer any questions."

"But, Denis—"

"I'll tell you when we get home. I want you to be sweet to poor old Lancaster, Nell."

She blushed guiltily. "I'd like to, but he won't come near me, I'm afraid."

"I'll manage. Don't you want some sandwiches?"

"Awfully badly."

"I'll send him along with them. Mind," warningly, "that you're nice to him."

She grew hotter still.

Presently Ted came to her.

"O'Brien asked me to bring you these," he said stiffly.

"Oh, thanks!" She dimpled at him charmingly.

"Don't you want anything to eat or drink? The coffee's awfully good."

"No, thanks."

He stood a moment.

She wondered why he looked so terribly tired, why he was so pale, with such dark rings round his eyes. All the mother in her wakened, and, with her shame, swamped the old sense of antagonism and made her long to make amends.

He turned on his heel.

"I—there's room for you here." She drew her skirt aside with a quick little nervous gesture.

He looked back at her surprised. She was smiling at him anxiously; there was soft deprecation in her eyes.

He hesitated.

"I—thanks," he said, and sat down.

She began chattering about Sheila Pat; about the Zoölogical Gardens, where they had been that day. She rattled on about their own Zoo in Dublin, in the Phoenix Park. She laughingly owned that the Regent's Park Zoo was larger. "But it hasn't such a beautiful background, there are no mountains, and ours is such a dear little Zoo somehow. The pelicans and peacocks and seagulls wander about in the open. Sheila Pat scorns your Regent's Park because they don't have polo matches there—"

"Oh, Mr. Lancaster," a fair-haired girl stopped before them, "I was so sorry for you! It must be terrible to be so nervous!"

He stood up.

"Very kind of you."

Her mother joined in: "Oh, no, everyone is pitying you! And Mr. Yovil is wild about it! He won't speak of it! So hard and unkind of him! As if anyone can help being nervous. Come, Lucy, dear."

Ted sat down again.

Nell looked fierce; her lips were shut tight, her cheeks glowing. He glanced at her.

"Something has vexed you?" he said tentatively.

"Yes."

"Anything I can do?"

"No! Oh, how hateful—hateful people are! What idiots! Oh, I'm as bad as they are! I didn't mean to worry you, but it—I never can keep things in. I choke."

"Please don't," he smiled rather bewilderedly. "Say what you like."

"No, I won't. Only how anyone could be so idiotic—so thick-skinned—so aggravating as those two just now—"

He looked at her incredulously.

"You're angry with them—for me?"

"Of course!" she sounded quite snappy.

"It's awfully nice of you, you know."

"Oh, no, it isn't. And I'm just making it worse—"

"No, you're not, you—you've made it a lot better."

"Have I?" She smiled radiantly. "Oh, I'm so glad!"

"And you know," in an extremely casual tone, "it serves me right for going in for it! And I was an awful fool, of course."

"You weren't. Denis was only saved by being an Irishman. I'll tell you a secret—he wouldn't mind...."

"Well, he is a clever chap!"

"And now do have something to eat. I expect," shrewdly, "you didn't have much dinner."

"But I'm so comfortable here," he pleaded.

"You are to go and get something," she commanded. "I'll keep your place for you."

At that he rose obediently.

Presently up came Cuthbert Pennington.

"I say, Miss O'Brien, don't you feel puffed up—reflected glory, you know, and all that? That young sister of yours says she knew he'd get the prize, because he's Irish. I said, 'Och, begorra, why doesn't his nose try to look at his brow then?' and she boxed my ears! Did, really! I've fallen head over heels in love with her. But she says she's going to marry an Irish breeder of horses. Hard on me, isn't it?"

His white teeth gleamed as he laughed out joyously.

"I say, if I'd known we'd a second what's-his-name amongst us, I'd never have fagged over books and notes till my hair went grey."

She glanced at his crisp black locks.

"What dye do you use?"

"Oh, a family secret! Won't you have some more coffee? Poor old Lancaster looks down, doesn't he? Never nervous myself—"

"If you'll let me get a word in edgeways, I'd like to observe that that seat is taken."

"How unkind you are to me! If you hadn't tempered your words with a smile, I'd have gone out and hanged myself. All right, I may stay here till the owner turns up? Thanks. I won't talk," sadly.

She dimpled mischievously.

Pause.

Someone passing smiled and nodded to him.

"I say, Miss O'Brien, see her? Think she's pretty? Well, my mater beats her hollow! Wish she was here to-night. I'd like you to know her—oh!" He gave a roar of laughter. "I'm talking! Well, I don't care!"

"I like you to talk," said she, sweetly, but rather absently. She was looking across to where Ted Lancaster stood in conversation with some friends. She was wondering when he meant to come and claim his place.

Presently he left the people he was talking to and strolled across to two boys.

Nell's head went up a little.

"Owner of this place doesn't seem to be coming," observed Pennington. "Lucky for me. I'm an awfully lucky chap. Oh, you're not going?"

"Denis is making faces at me. Everyone's gone or going. And we have an aunt who objects to us keeping late hours."

"Going, Nell?" Denis came up, laughing. "Look at the Atom shadowing poor old Yovil! He was just having a chat with that grey-haired cousin or something of his—awful nice old lady—and up came the Atom, 'You mustn't talk to her any more. Go at once and speak to the grumpy one in green!' She was pretty autocratic, and he as meek as butter."

"O'Brien," exclaimed their host as they reached his side, "I've been trying to get to you, but," with a whimsical glance down at Sheila Pat, "I'm under orders to-night. I've never been so polite before in all my life. Now shake hands! You'll be heard of some day, O'Brien!"

Denis flushed and laughed.

"I'd like to tell you something—"

"Eh?" The glasses flashed on him quickly. He drew him aside.

"Well? Well?"

Presently they heard him give a satisfied chuckle.

"Good! Good! That accounts for a certain want of polish. The sentences were at times crude—abrupt—rounded off carelessly. There was tautology once or twice. Good! I'm glad you told me! I like your family. Shake again! Ah, there's Lancaster. Young man," gripping Ted's shoulder as he passed, "I have great hopes for you! For you have made just the same beginning as I did myself many years ago." He twinkled humorously and shook hands with great heartiness. Nell thought of the little man's reported "wildness." She had decided that it was very rude indeed of Ted not to trouble to come back to her when she was keeping his place for him. So her good night lacked warmth. But then so did his.

Mr. Yovil turned to Sheila Pat; he tilted up her face and eyed her amusedly.

"Have I worked you too hard, my Social Prompter?"

She shook her head.

"You haven't spoken much to the bathing-dress lady!"

"Haven't I? I'd sooner speak to you."

"Would you? Perhaps I'll come and see you all alone one day, shall I?"

"I wish you would. And I wonder if I dare ask for a kiss?"

"Your musstache looks rather prickly, I think," she hesitated.

"Try it."

He lifted her high in the air and kissed her. He put her down gently and turned to bid other guests good-bye. At the door the Atom looked back and waved her hand.

"Good-bye, Mr. Yovil!" her voice rang out. "Don't forget the one in the—you know—" An obvious nod at the red and white striped lady completed the sentence.

When they reached Henley Road the door was opened by Herr Schmidt.

"My brother won the prize, Herr Schmidt." Sheila Pat's tone was full of decorous pride.

"Ach, I am glad! Come in. Hush, your aunt sleeps—"

"You weren't sitting up for us, were you, Herr Schmidt?" Nell asked.

"Nein, nein, Fräulein! I sit up late always, and I tell your aunt I will open ze door to you. You will come in and tell me about your evening, hein?"

Sheila Pat's gaiety had gone; her face looked pale and tired.

Up in the Stronghold Molly lay in the arm-chair fast asleep, but Kate Kearney flew to welcome them.

Nell, looking at the Atom's weary little face, and hearing her sharp responses to Molly's questions, cut the talk short. Molly went to bed bewildered with sleepiness and hearing that Denis's speech hadn't been his speech at all.

To Nell he explained more fully.

"It was your face, Nell! I stood there, and it had all gone—I couldn't remember a word! Whether it was poor old Lancaster's bad example, I don't know. And all of a sudden I met your eyes. Oh, Nell," with a chuckle, "you did look so agonised, so beseeching! And it was exactly how you looked at me that day when the Colleen Bawn knocked that hole into her foreleg—d'you remember?—and you were trying to stop the bleeding, when I came up. Well, I'd got to stop it for you, somehow, and I did. And to-night I'd got to speak a speech, and I did."

"Yes, you did."

She was silent, gazing into the fire.

"Poor little Atom!" she murmured softly.

"I wish I hadn't done it!" He kicked the fender moodily.

"Oh, don't, Denis! It was splendid. Isn't it a true sign of power to move your audience? Besides—somehow it has done me good—it has made me feel—know—that we're going back to it all some day!"

"How?"

Her beautiful eyes were misty; she gave a little radiant smile.

"Oh, how should I know! But it has! And I'm sure it's done the same to Sheila Pat!"

But that night she had to turn her pillow round more than once.

CHAPTER XIV

Nell handed it over to Denis with an air of pride.

"That's all we've bought for Christmas so far, Denis. We'd better hurry up."

"There's not much to get this year," he said gloomily.

She stabbed the table with her pencil.

"Sir William Harrison will give 'em all their Christmas 'comforts,'" he pursued with a sneer.

She sighed.

"Nora says in the letter I had this morning that they're really very nice people, only none of them can bear to see them in our home. She says they're awfully good to the poor people, and—and haven't altered anything—"

There was a silence.

"There's the hospital," she began; "we must send the box off in good time, and I want to give Sarah's little brothers and sisters presents, and now Sheila Pat has chummed up with that milkman, and he certainly has two of the dearest little chubby girls! There's a good deal to get, Denis."

"So there is, asthore! To-morrow's Saturday. We'll go shopping directly after lunch!"

He picked up a chocolate cake from the table and ate it. It was one of a lot he had bought for Sheila Pat, whose lunch, in punishment for some misdeed, had been meagre and puddingless. Miss Kezia invariably punished the Atom so, and Denis invariably bought her a substitute of cakes and goodies to make up.

"It'll have to be ingenious shopping this year, Denis," Nell said.

He tapped his brow. "Here's an idea now! Surely in big toy shops some of the toys must get broken! Eh? Here's the shopper. We'll buy the broken toys, and I'll mend 'em. See, I'll turn carpenter for the nonce! Oh, we'll drive wonderful bargains between us! What a head I've got!"

The next afternoon they set forth. The first toy shop they came to was a large and fashionable one. Molly elected to wait outside, but the others marched gaily in.

A tall and smiling damsel came gliding towards them, but at Denis's debonair request for damaged toys, the smile froze, and the damsel informed him coldly that it was not a second-hand shop.

He smiled blandly, and responded that he could see that, but had thought that even in such an elegant emporium things must occasionally be broken.

"We'll relieve you of tailless horses, armless and legless dolls, sailless ships, funnelless engines, neckless giraffes, humpless camels, trunkless elephants, even noseless tapirs," he ended with a flourish.

The damsel's eye gleamed coldly.

"I conclude when things are broken they are thrown away," she observed with haughty nonchalance.

He searched his pockets; his face was very grave.

"Ah, I have not a tract with me bearing on this subject. But, my dear young lady, it is a subject very near my heart. Waste! Ah, 'Waste not, want not!' You have heard the wise old proverb? Waste! In thy name how many sins are committed, daily, hourly, minutely! Think of empty little arms—outstretched, clamoring—empty—while the dust-bin is full! Think of armless dolls smiling in the midst of decayed vegetables! Trunkless elephants sleeping in dust! And they might be hushed on happy little bosoms!"

He turned aside with a gesture of grief and opened the door for Nell and the Atom to pass through.

Outside: "Oh, Nell," cried Molly, "what are you laughing at? Oh! and there are one—two—three heads looking out of the door after us!"

They were more successful in the next shop. In a few minutes the shop-walker and three assistants were laughingly crawling about searching for broken toys. Kate Kearney helped too, and demolished a ball in the process.

But the big success of the afternoon was the fourpence halfpenny shop. They were enthralled. Shining pots and pans, gorgeous picture frames, still more gorgeous pictures, vases, tea-pots, and toys, and all for four-pence halfpenny each! What was fourpence halfpenny? Nothing. Joyously they marched in. The tubby little woman who came forward to serve them was delightful, too. When she nodded her head, the bobby little grey curls at the sides of her face nodded too.

Nell said: "Oh, what a lovely shop! Isn't anything more than fourpence halfpenny?"

"No, dearie, that is, miss, all the same price. Twenty-four year 'ave me and Jelks kep' this shop. We find toys and kitching utensils sell best. That doll now is good valley for your money, miss. Will your dog do any damage, sir? Oh," as Kate Kearney lay down at Denis's command, "what a good-beyaved little man! I must fetch 'im a biscuit while you're looking round like."

The O'Briens were hilarious.

Fourpence halfpenny! They had decided that they must only spend two or three shillings more; but two or three shillings was untold wealth in a fourpenny halfpenny shop. No need to be careful now. Gaily they chose dolls, horses and carts, trumpets, Noah's arks filled with weird and wondrous animals that Noah himself would never have recognised. Then a customer came in. He was a small and puny customer, but he marched into the shop with an air of grave importance before which his ragged clothes seemed to fade into an abashed oblivion. Denis flung his hat away, and came forward, rubbing his hands together in true professional style.

"And what can I do for you, sir? Toys? Pots? Pans? Brushes?"

"Ain't Mrs. Jelks in?" gasped the urchin; "'ere, none o' that," recovering with Cockney speed. "You're a gent, you are."

"A distant relative of Mrs.—er—Jelks. I'm taking charge of the shop during her absence. Well, miss," turning to Nell, "have you chosen a doll yet?"

"I think I'll have this one." She seized recklessly upon a particularly ugly specimen.

"That's not such good valley for your money as this lady with the golden locks, madam."

"I'll look about a little longer," she declared demurely.

"Certainly, madam!"

He turned again to the bewildered but now convinced urchin.

"Is it something for yourself you want?" he inquired blandly.

The boy shook his head with an air of deep mystery.

"Whom for, then? If you will tell me, I can help you to choose, you know."

He hesitated, glanced sharply at Denis's face, and suddenly blurted out excitedly:—

"It's for Liz, sir! She's my sister what can't walk, you know. I've got it—look!" opening out a grimy little palm with a penny, six halfpennies, and two farthings on it. "Ain't it fine? And I put 'er off—she thinks I only got a penny! She do, true as I stand 'ere! It'll 'ave to be a secret till Christmas, too!"

"Did you save it all up?" asked Nell.

"Yes, miss! Every fardin'! And she don't know!"

"You will have to choose very carefully, won't you? A doll, do you think?"

He shook his head.

"Gals are so funny," with a puzzled little frown; "she's got a ole wooden thing, 'as Liz, with no arms nor legs, and she 'ugs it like anythink, and I ses to 'er t'other day, 'Liz,' I ses, that artful she'd never guess what I was up to,—'Liz,' I ses, 'wouldn't it be fine if Sandy Claws was to come and give you a fine new doll with arms and legs now?' And she up with 'er face all red, and she ses quite angry like, 'I wouldn't 'ave it,' she ses, 'ugging 'er old wooden doll, 'I'd throw it in the fire,' she ses, 'my sweet Lily Vilet!'"

"Well, then," Nell suggested, "something for the doll?"

"Yes, miss, that's it!"

He was studying the treasures around him with solemn gaze.

"This little doll's house?" suggested Denis. "Or this Noah's ark—it seems to be filled chiefly with brown paper, by the way. Or this beautiful cradle? All good valley," twinkling at Nell, "excellent valley."

The urchin looked from one thing to another.

"It's differcult to know which, ain't it?"

"Take your time, take your time. I'll be serving my other customers."

He eyed Molly concernedly.

"Don't you feel well, miss? You look sort of hysterical. Twenty-four year 'ave me and Jelks kep' this shop and never 'ad our goods laughed at before!"

He turned his attention to Sheila Pat, who was rummaging earnestly for broken toys.

"That's a splendid ball you're looking at, miss. Let me show you how it bounces."

In an instant Kate Kearney was after it; there was a crash, a tumble—and a horse, a donkey, a tin pail, and a box of bricks lay on the floor. K.K., unabashed, seized the donkey and shook it.

"Drop it! Drop it, K.K.!"

The little urchin, after one glance round at the crash, went on staring at the treasure of treasures he had found on the counter—a small wooden table with pink and white cups and saucers, plates, tea-pot, milk jug, and sugar basin set out invitingly on a spotless white cloth. The last brick hunted out of the last corner and put back into its box, they turned their attention to their small customer again. Nell whispered quickly to Denis:—

"Quick, before she comes back—pretend its fourpence halfpenny for both! Don't let him guess—it would spoil it all for him!"

"Chosen anything yet?" Denis queried. "Take your time. We are accustomed to purchasers not being able to decide between the wondrous bargains we display. Now this," he waved aloft a particularly awful tin plate on which was painted in very vivid colours a big-headed little girl caressing a dog several sizes larger than herself, "this is a wonderful artistic product—after Landseer. You might think the animal was perchance an elephant—"

"They're fourpence ha'penny for the table, and fourpence ha'penny for the cups and things, in course," the urchin interpolated with a big sigh, and never a thought for Denis's nonsense. "They beat everythink in the shop into fits!"

"This table? This tea-set? Well, you're a born shopper. Fourpence ha'penny for 'em both! Best valley I've got in the shop!"

"'And 'em over, sir!"

He held out his money in a grubby little hand that positively shook with eagerness. Then his fingers closed on it suddenly. He said with suspicion:—

"Yer sure it's for both? I ain't got no more money, so it's no use trying to bluff me into buying more'n fourpenny 'a'penny worth!"

"My dear sir, this shop is above suspicion. Twenty-four year 'ave me and Jelks kep' it!" He had seized a newspaper and was rolling it round the toys. "For twenty-four years has it stood in conscious rectitude—"

"'Ere, don't I git a box to put 'em in?" the urchin interrupted, unimpressed.

"A box, is it?"

Nell interposed, stern disapproval in her tone.

"Of course you should have a box! He's a most careless young man! There's the box that the tea things fit into just at his elbow!"

She watched delightedly his vain efforts to fit the cups and saucers into the shaped spaces cut into the cardboard.

"Really," she observed to the urchin, "I wonder Mrs. Jelly has such a very foolish young man to attend to her shop!"

"J-Jelks," came from the background in Molly's voice and with Molly's giggle.

In dignified silence Denis sought valiantly to ram the sugar basin into the place where the milk jug belonged; he put a cup into a plate hole, the cup disappeared and ran about under the cardboard.

"That ain't where it belongs! New to the business, ain't yer?" scoffed the urchin.

"That is where it is going to stay," Denis said firmly. "I never tempt Providence."

Nell came forward with an air.

"Young man, hand them over to me! I really am surprised at Mrs. Jel—Jelks! I will arrange the tea things."

As the urchin took the parcel from her, he said in a confidential aside:—

"Tell yer wot it is, miss, 'e's too 'igh and mighty for 'is business!"

"I expect so. You can see that he is consumed with conceit."

The urchin nodded his head towards Molly.

"That young lidy's just laughing at 'im, ain't she?"

Nell declared with an airy recklessness, "Oh, they're all maniacs!"

He trotted off, parcel under arm, and the maniacs sent "Happy Christmasses" after him.

"Nell O'Brien," Denis exclaimed, "that for your impertinent pate!"

The woolly rabbit bit her brow. A dog followed, a ball, an elephant, a brush—then Molly burst out, "Mrs. J-J-Jelks!"

Mrs. Jelks received a fur monkey on her plump shoulder. She was wiping her eyes, but her laughter was dying, killed by her disapproval of the toy storm.

"Please, sir, I—couldn't afford to pay breakages! O dear! Well, it was as good as a play, I do declare. I only come back because you was getting too free with my goods. 'Ere's your biscuit, doggie." She bent down slowly to K.K. Denis gazed at her back.

"Jelly, valley, and twenty-four year 'ave Jelks and me," he murmured serenely.

Molly fled.

"Were you list'nin'?" Sheila Pat demanded.

"Did you think I'd leave my shop all that while, my dear? I've been a-watching you through the spy-'ole. You've broke one or two things, sir!"

"Oh, we'll buy them. We like 'em broken."

"Well, now, I've never 'eard anyone say that before. And you sold that table and tea-set at half price—"

"Oh, that's all right! We'll pay the difference."

"I thought that was what you'd do, sir."

They began choosing toys again. Sheila Pat, on whom the fever of bargain-hunting had descended, asked earnestly if Mrs. Jelks hadn't any broken toys.

Mrs. Jelks nearly subsided on to a piled-up heap of pots and pans, under the impression that they were a chair.

"Well," she gasped, "more broken toys! Well, I never did!"

Molly crept back and took part in the choosing.

"I think that's all," Nell said at last.

"Yes, miss. I've kep' count. That'll be eleven and threepence."

"How much?"

"Eleven and threepence, miss."

They began to laugh.

"Denis, we didn't mean to go beyond two or three shillings! I wouldn't have thought if we'd bought pounds' worth of fourpenny halfpenny things, it could have come to that!"

Mrs. Jelks did not deliver goods at houses, and she had no brown paper. So the O'Briens marched forth laden heavily with weird-shaped newspaper parcels. It happened that Ted Lancaster, in a silk hat, long fawn coat, and immaculate patent-leather boots, came strolling across their path. Over a large and bulging Noah's ark up went Nell's head.

Hat in hand, he greeted them.

"You'll let me carry those parcels, Miss O'Brien?"

"No, thanks."

"Please let me; and you'll let me carry yours, too," to Molly, "won't you?"

"Thank you," said Molly, shyly.

"Good for you, old chap! I did my best, but I've only one pair of arms, don't you know," observed Denis.

"Newspaper parcels seem incongruous with you, somehow," said Nell, unkindly.

He flushed up.

"Hand 'em over, Nell!" said Denis, frowning. "Don't keep us all standing here!"

Nell walked on quickly.

"I like to carry them myself."

Ted spoke to Sheila Pat.

"Gigantic Atom, I bet anything you, too, prefer to carry your own parcels?"

She nodded.

"But I'd like to hold your arm."

"Honoured, I'm sure."

Laboriously she freed her right hand and tucked it, and a lamb that had escaped from a parcel, beneath his arm.

Nell had grown penitent. She turned a charming and rather pink cheek towards him.

"I'm tired of carrying my parcels," she said plaintively.

"You'll let me? Thanks!"

They told him of their morning's shopping, and he listened with absorbed interest.

Then Nell, who hated to have a grievance hidden away, brought hers out reproachfully.

"I do think it was awfully nasty of you to go away and forget I was keeping a place for you the other night."

He promptly dropped a parcel.

"Forget!" he exclaimed, standing on Noah, and surrounded by his relations and his horses and his cows and his elephants and his trees. "Why, Pennington took my place!"

"Oh, but that was only till you should come back."

"Fool!" he muttered savagely, and kicked Noah's aunt.

"Be careful, boy!" shrilled the Atom, who was picking up Noah and his impedimenta.

"Sorry!" He stooped and helped her.

"So," said Mistress Nell, "you thought I broke my word!"

"I—I'm awfully sorry. I thought you'd forgotten."

"I never forget a promise."

"No, of course not! That is—I mean—I thought—hang it all, I was an idiot!" He flung Noah's patriarchal oak into the box. "But when I saw that fool of a Pennington—"

"He's not a fool. I don't see why you should call him names. And hadn't you better hurry? We're obstructing the pavement."

"This—er—lady in the blue dressing-gown won't go in."

"I'll take her," volunteered the Atom.

Nell looked down into his face and laughed.

"Oh, that's all right!" he exclaimed, relieved.

"I say," Denis and Molly reappeared, coming back to look for them, "aren't you ever coming?"

Ted, once more clasping the newspapered Noah's ark and other toys to the bosom of his fashionable coat, walked on.

"Been to a concert with my aunt and cousins," he volunteered to Denis.

"Like it?"

He frowned.

"I like going to concerts alone," he observed ungallantly.

And Nell dimpled, as she mentally drew pictures.

He could not come in with them, as he was due somewhere else, but the real regret in his face and voice prompted them to insist that he should come very soon.

Up in the Stronghold Sheila Pat turned to Denis.

"I'm thinking you make very unrespectful friends, Denis O'Brien," she remarked austerely. "That boy—" pause—"pulled—my—pig-tail!"

CHAPTER XV

Nell stirred energetically.

"Molly! Molly!"

"Yes!"

"Come and stir my toffee a minute. I want to run down and look at my cakes."

"Oh, miss," Sarah greeted her with a relieved and beaming smile, "I'm so glad you've come. I'm that afraid they'll burn! And I darsent open the oven door, 'cause you told me not to."

"Don't they look good, Sarah?"

"'Aven't they risen splendid, miss?"

Sarah looked at the little golden cakes admiringly. "You can cook beautiful! Those pitaters you showed me 'ow to do—they were beautiful."

"Oh, potatoes!" She laughed. "They're our national dish, you know. Sarah, is your mother better?"

"Yes, miss, and those books did cheer 'er you wouldn't believe, with all the beautiful pictures of the birds and animals and flowers and trees and reading about 'em; not," honestly, "that she reads all of 'em, her not being a scholard, but there's one or two about the little birds and 'ow they builds their nests and all that that she's just read over and over again, and she does enjoy the pictures—such a one she is for the country ever since she went to Margate for a week on 'er 'oneymoon! And she's that careful with them, miss!"

Nell nodded.

"Yes she is. I'm so glad—I do hate to have books mauled about."

Sarah grinned delightedly.

"This is how she does, miss. She gits out 'er black-edged handkercher what she 'ad for father's funeral and Walter's and Gladys's,—what died, you know,—and she puts it across the back of the book and round the edges so as her fingers don't touch the pages at all, and she keeps the book wrapped up in that funeral handkercher, and she says to the children, 'If ever I ketch you a-touching of that handkercher, I'll beat you till you're black and blue from head to foot!' So you see, miss, that's 'ow it is."

Nell, twinkling over the contrast between Mrs. Jones's fierce words and herself, a meek little thin woman with watery blue eyes and no control over even her baby, gravely declared she did see, and then hurried up to the Stronghold again.

"It really looks charming!" she said, standing on the threshold and looking round the little, overcrowded room, with its pictures, its books, its various treasures, its photographs, a good many of them in beautifully carved Irish bog-oak frames, its two bronze jars with pink chrysanthemums in them, its collection of bog-oak pigs of all sizes.

Jim O'Driscoll sat thoughtfully in the large cage that Denis had made for him. He had discovered that, by stretching out his arm to its uttermost length, he could reach a cushion on the sofa; that, by wriggling in a finger, he could pull the feathers out, and he was very happy.

"Poor Jimmy," Nell said as she passed him sitting innocently gazing before him, "I wonder if you're getting used to earthquakes and tornadoes that seize up your house and hurl it into darkness behind the sofa! Aunt Kezia never used to come up here as she does now!"

Molly shouted out, "Oh!" and a crash drowned her voice.

In trying to fix some holly in a pot on a shelf, she had knocked the shelf down, and with it a collection of pots, curious stones, photographs, pigs.

Nell prognosticated, "Now Ted Lancaster will come," and dived under the table after a curious old fossil she had found one day in the little stream at the foot of Belmarknock Hill. She picked it up, and sat back on her heels, lost in a sudden dream of that misty day when she had found it. The dear mist! She remembered what a vivid emerald green the grass had been—and the golden shafts of sunlight that fell athwart the mist—and the deep blue sky behind it. She remembered how clearly the reflection of herself and her red tam-o'-shanter had shown in the stream—and down the hill Denis's voice, singing and shouting to his dogs, had come to her....

Ted Lancaster stood within the doorway and looked round the room with bewildered eyes.

Emerging from the lounge were a pair of long legs and a bit of skirt. Up on a step-ladder, in the corner, he discerned the Atom. From beneath the table trailed a piece of bright blue pinafore; that was all.

"I've told the handmaiden to hurry up with tea," came Denis's voice behind him.

The legs beneath the lounge wriggled spasmodically, and out came Molly, red and abashed. From the step-ladder descended the Atom, but Nell sat on, serene and absorbed, beneath the table.

"Where's Nell?" shouted Denis. "I say, bet you knocked that shelf down, old muddle-head! What ever's Nell sitting under the table for?"

Brought to the present, she crawled out.

"How-do-you-do?" she said in an absent sort of voice.

Ted looked at her. Her eyes were soft and looking far away; she quite forgot to remember how queer he must have thought it to find her sitting under the table. The suddenness of the change from the stream with its music in her ears, and the hills and the mist before her eyes, to the Stronghold was harsh, and made her feel bad. From her face he glanced to the queer old fossil to which her fingers were clinging with something of desperation in their hold, and he understood suddenly. He turned his broad shoulders on her.

"What were you doing under that lounge, Miss Molly? And you, Miss Sheila Patricia Kathleen O'Brien—surely you should not have been at the top of those steps?"

Sheila Pat's great eyes fairly glowered at him.

"Sure, thin, I was never dhramin' you were a—a spoilsport! Go away! It's easy to see now that you've never been in Ireland!"

"I've forbidden those steps to her," declared Denis, striving to look severe. "Let's take them out, old man."

"I—I wish you wouldn't call me 'Miss Molly'!" blurted out Molly, suddenly.

He looked at her surprised.

"It's awfully good of you," he said in his quiet voice, and Molly's hot cheeks cooled. "I shall be awfully pleased to call you 'Molly,' Molly."

"You're not to call me Sheila Pat," declared the Atom, her pig-tail at an acute angle.

"I should not think of taking such a liberty, Miss Sheila Patricia Kathleen O'Brien."

"I've made some toffee," said Nell. "Are you fond of it? It's too soft to eat yet," digging a knife into it.

"Oh, I say, is it at the stage where it pulls into long strips when you try to bite it, and catches on your nose and mouth and everywhere?"

She nodded.

"Let me have a bit, will you? I haven't had it like that since I was a kid and my old nurse used to make it."

Presently, with his teeth stuck together and his fingers all sticky, he seemed supremely happy.

"I prefer toffee the proper way," observed the Atom, nose in air. "I'm not a baby to want it all soft for my teeth!"

"Ah," said Ted, "you will soon, when your milk teeth begin to wabble before they fall out."

The Atom was observed surreptitiously feeling her little white teeth.

"Nell," quoth Denis, "I've just washed my hands. Feed me, asthore. Think I'm a little, little birdie—ah!"

He stopped abruptly, and his cheek shone round and tight over Nell's liberal interpretation of his request. But, liberal as it was, it did not seem to affect his appetite for tea. Nell's cakes all vanished; more toast had to be made, and Ted called down a good deal of laughter at his clumsiness over the business of toasting. Once Miss Kezia sent Sarah up to request that there should be "less noise." Ted's face of whimsical amusement delighted Nell.

Denis issued a mandate that it should be a "rhyming tea." He explained to Ted:—

"You mustn't speak except in rhyme. Everything you say must rhyme somehow—twig?"

"Oh, I say," Ted's eyebrows were stuck up. "I can't, you know! Never made a rhyme in my life!"

"That's the fun!" declared Nell, and he pondered her cryptic utterance ruefully.

It was "fun." Ted's awful and desperate rhymes made them shout with laughter. He mournfully dubbed Denis a beastly poet, and eyed him with reproach. Then suddenly his face cleared. With a bland gravity he asked Nell to have a cake, and left the request rhymeless. To the chorus of "Rhyme! Rhyme!" he responded amiably that he was speaking in blank verse, and from the refuge of blank verse they could not move him. In vain the Atom, her metre waxing wilder and wilder, as her indignation grew, in vain she strove to shame him into rhyming. He gazed at her with ever increasing enjoyment. To her madly rhyming vituperation he responded with gentle obstinacy. And he stuck to his blank verse like an Englishman, and a very unpoetical one.

"Oh!" exclaimed Nell, later on in the evening, "I want to show you something. Now, you remember our broken purchases the other day? Behold the legless doll!"

Ted gravely took it and examined a pair of somewhat shapeless, but plump white linen extremities stuffed with wool.

"The shaftless cart! The paintless boat! The one-armed doll! The headless lady! The three-legged cat!" One after another he examined them. He was a good deal amused, but full of admiration; seeing which Nell dragged out further examples of their art.

"Tell me what that is."

She held up a very corpulent, grey stuffed pincushion on four legs.

Ted stared uneasily.

"Be careful, old chap," warned Denis, from the armchair. "It's Nell's pet admiration, and made by herself."

"A pig?" he queried uncertainly.

"Oh, 'tis the broth of a bhoy you are!" exclaimed Nell, in impulsive triumph. "Now, then, Denis! Didn't I know all your scoffing was just jealousy?"

"It's a splendid pig!" declared Ted, with enthusiasm. "Look at its tail!"

"Do English pigs grow their tails on top of their off-hind legs?" queried Denis.

"No; but little Irish girls grow 'em over their left shoulders!"

There was a spurt of appreciative laughter from an unwilling and would-be dignified Atom.

"Look at my bear!" said Nell; "and oh, do look at Denis's effort!"

"Um! Is it an Irish animal?"

"No; you know what it is, you duffer!"

"An elephant, old man?"

"Try again!" dimpled Nell.

"A kangeroo?"

"You're getting nearer. It's something that hops."

"Hops? A lame giraffe?" He caught the cushion aimed at him by Denis.

"It's a—robin!" cried Nell.

"Great Scott!"

"What's this?" he picked up another work of art.

"That's a needle cushion," observed Denis. "It was going to be a cat, but Molly's broken five needles into it already! Say, Lancaster, you come over here and I'll show you a genuine work of art as compiled and invented and built entirely by your humble servant!"

"Did you really make it?" He knelt down and studied the doll's house. "Um—might be worse!"

"Four rooms," said Nell, thoughtfully. "Bedroom, kitchen, dining room, drawing-room, or nursery?"

"Nursery," Denis decided. "Girls are always cranky over horrid wobbly babies!"

"That's true," said Nell. "I mean," hastily, "girls do have the sense to like nice little chubby babies, so a nursery it shall be!"

Kate Kearney came pattering softly up to Ted, and stood gazing into his face. He picked her up.

"What d'you want, old girl?"

She lashed her tail; she wriggled her head into his shoulder; she eyed him with innocent adoration.

"She's been up to something," observed Denis.

"Oh!" ejaculated Nell. "Oh, K.K.!" She held up a half-demolished grey pig.

"'Oh! should you e'er meet this Kate Kearney,

Who lives on the banks of Killarney,

Beware of her smile, for many a wile

Lies hid in the smile of Kate Kearney.

Though she looks so bewitchingly simple,

Yet there's mischief in every dimple;

And who dares inhale her sigh's spicy gale,

Must die by the breath of Kate Kearney,'"

sang Denis. "The poor piggy inhaled her sigh this time."

When Molly and Sheila Pat had gone to bed, the others sat around the fire and talked. Jim came down from the curtain rod, sat on the hearth-rug, and gazed into the fire. Occasionally he glanced up with his bright little eyes from one to another. He obviously took part in the conversation. Nell began to feel that she had known Ted for years and years. She discovered that he had no near relations except his father and the aunt and cousins she had seen. Filling the gaps he left, she made out that his father was absorbed in the game of speculation; that he was always going to and fro between London and New York on business; that Ted often did not even know his address.

When Ted departed, Denis went with him to the corner. Coming back alone, he lifted his beautiful voice in "The Wearing o' the Green," and, oblivious of the heads thrust from windows, strolled slowly towards his gate.

Whereupon Miss Kezia was wroth on three counts: his being so absurd as to have gone to the corner; his going with no coat or hat on; and his singing in that disgraceful manner at that time of night in the streets. Poor Denis! He had been used to sing always when he felt inclined at Kilbrannan. Nell had often listened with delight to his voice as it rang and echoed amongst their beloved hills. She had often joined in, too.

All his excuse now was—"It's such a glorious moonlight night!" And he went up unabashed to Nell. She was standing staring thoughtfully into the fire.

"Denis," she said slowly, "all he could find to say good about his father was that he 'gives him a jolly good allowance!'"

"Yes, poor beggar."

Silence.

"Denis, he seemed to enjoy it all so!"

"Yes."

Longer pause. Then, tragically:—

"Denis, he—doesn't hang out a Christmas stocking!"

CHAPTER XVI

"Oh, Denis!" said Nell.

"What have you been up to now?"

"Jim and I have been dodging Aunt Kezia all the morning. He's very exciting. Of course because I was with him in the garden she chose to want me for some deep purpose of her own. Molly told her I wasn't in. She said she wouldn't say I was out, because it didn't seem truthful. Then she waved the red flag from the Stronghold window, so I knew I was to lie low. I sat down on the path behind the dust-bin. I don't like dust-bins, and Jim does, which makes it awkward. He persisted in stretching out and picking out horrible bits of dirty paper and cardboard and tin. Then Aunt Kezia, out of pure, native cussedness, decides to come into the garden to mend that bit of broken lattice. I heard her saying so to Sarah in the kitchen doorway, and I simply fled over the wall. Denis, now I ask you, why couldn't the dust-bin be against Mrs. Barclay's wall? I daren't cross the garden, so I had to take refuge in the garden of the enemies of our aunt! And there Jim and I crouched behind an inadequate laurel bush. At intervals I'd look up, but always I could see the red handkerchief dangling from the window. Sometimes I could see Aunt Kezia's head, too! I was frozen so stiff I couldn't move. And Jim ate two buttons off my blouse. And that awful old Mrs. Ponsonby next door kept appearing at one of the windows. Hair by hair I felt my head going grey. But Jim must be exercised. That's four times in two days Aunt Kezia has almost caught him!"

"I'll mend the catch of his cage this very moment. We're going to St. James Park this afternoon, you know, and we'll make sure he's safe."

Sheila Pat suggested, "I think Tommy would like to come, too."

"We'll ask him."

That afternoon Sheila Pat was ready first.

"Nell, may I go and ask Tommy?"

"All right, only don't dawdle."

Sheila Pat trotted off.

Mrs. Barclay hesitated; she looked worried.

"Please may he come?" Sheila Pat repeated.

"I should like him to go, dear, but—but—" Suddenly she bent down and kissed the serious little face passionately. "Be good to him, Sheila Pat! He isn't strong—he has a good deal to bear. Sometimes he gets into a bad temper, because he can't be quite like other boys. To-day he won't speak. He hasn't spoken since breakfast."

"Please may I go up to him?"

"Yes, dear. He is in the schoolroom."

She turned and walked staidly out into the hall, and opened the schoolroom door.

Stewart was huddled up in the window doing nothing.

"Good mornin'," she said.

He took no notice.

She tiptoed across the room, an oddly worried look on her small face.

"Tommy, will you come to see the horse guards with us?" she almost whispered.

He stared out of the window.

"Denis is comin', too. And we're goin' on an omnibus, and you and me will get front seats, and—and it's very windy," the soft little voice went patiently on, enumerating all the delights of the expedition. "Do come, Tommy, won't you?"

He drummed on the window pane with thin little fingers.

"I 'spect our hats will blow right off, and the horses and soljers are grand, and—and p'raps it will rain, too—and—and—and Mrs. Barclay says she would like you to go—"

Suddenly he turned on her, the brilliant colour leaping to his cheeks.

"You!" he cried stormily. "You! Why don't you sneer at me? Why don't you call me names? You!"

A little puzzled frown settled on her brows.

"I—don't—know why I don't," she said slowly.

"Go away! Go now! Go at once!" and before she could move he had burst into a perfect storm of tears. Sheila Pat backed across the room till she reached the opposite wall, and stood staring, wide eyed, at the shaking little figure in the window, at the fair head prone on the outstretched, despairing arms.

Presently he raised his head.

"Why don't you go, you hateful, beastly little pryer? Why don't you? Oh, I don't mean it," he added wildly, "only—you—you'll despise me—more'n ever—" His voice dropped dejectedly. He began fumbling vainly for his handkerchief. Sheila Pat produced a clean folded one of her own, and came across the room and handed it to him. "You'd better go—they'll be waiting for you won't they?"

"Please come, too, Tommy."

He turned wondering eyes on her.

"Look here, I—I'm going to tell you! It was a beastly boy—I went to post a letter for mother this morning, and he—" his face flushed scarlet, "he imitated me—he pertended to be lame like me, and I—I tried to go for him, but he just ran, you see—and he—laughed—"

Sheila Pat's face quivered. There was a little silence.

"And—and he made me feel—wild—"

"Please, Tommy, don't talk about that boy," her voice shook, "please don't."

He stared moodily out of the window again. She stood by, a queer little motherly look on her serious face.

"Will you come now, Tommy?"

A loud rat-a-tat-tat-tat-tat echoed through the house.

"That's them!" exclaimed the Atom, with ungrammatical excitement.

"Oh, Tommy, please be quick!"

A minute later they ran down to the hall, where they found Denis declaring he wouldn't wait any longer.

Stewart gave his mother a shy little nod, and they started.

CHAPTER XVII

Nell hardly paused to breathe. Standing before her easel, the easel dragged into the window, the curtains tugged back, she worked away with a rapid brush.

"Mr. Lancaster, missansir!" Sarah announced with an air.

"Oh, how are you? Do you mind waiting a minute?" She did not even glance round.

Silence reigned.

Then she flung down her brush with a sigh, stepped back and into Ted Lancaster's arms.

"Oh!" She gave a little laugh and turned round. "I've been rude, haven't I? But I did so want to catch that bit of grudging daylight. Denis is out with the others. He got off early to-day."

"Yes, I know. I thought I'd catch him. I wanted to ask him if he'd come round this evening."

She held out painty fingers.

"I can't even shake hands! And why did you stand there all the time?"

"I've been watching you."

"I hope you found it interesting."

"I did. I like the little dabs you do with your brush on the front of your pinafore up at the right-hand side."

She laughed.

"I make myself very painty."

He was studying her painting earnestly.

"It's just a study of an old white horse a milkman—a friend of Sheila Pat's—has. I spent the morning in his stable. He's invalided home on account of a lame leg. I was just putting a few finishing touches from memory."

"He's splendid."

"He was a glorious model—but difficult. There's any amount of drawing in him. I'm going again to-morrow, only you see, if Aunt Kezia were to find out, I feel sure she'd forbid me, and—well, I suppose there would be ructions then, because she'd forbid me to go, and I'm going to finish him down to the last hair on his tail. I know she'll catch me. I walk out, canvas and easel, paint-box and all, as bold as Larry Hoolahan himself. Only Aunt Kezia's worse than any shape the fairies ever took!"

"Who's the gentleman?"

"Oh, he was a piper who was afraid of nothing." She picked up her brush again, and worked a little on the head. "He wasn't afraid even of the fairies, and actually won the good-will of the chief of them on Knocksheogonna."

"Would you mind saying it again?" he suggested.

She smiled.

"It means 'the Hill of the Fairy Calf.' I'm spoiling this," she put down her palette and brush. "I'll show you my rendering of some of the shapes the fairy took to scare the poor herdsmen away. They resented cattle being herded on their ground, you see."

She started rummaging in a big old untidy portfolio. She handed him a sheet of paper covered with rough sketches in water colour.

"By Jove, that Hooligan must have had a good nerve to stand those."

"You're not to call him that. I like him. That's where she turned herself into a man with a lame leg and a bull's head, with flames playing all round it. There she's a big horse, with eagle's wings and a dragon's tail, with fire coming out of her mouth."

"This beats them all, I think!"

"Oh, yes, she's a huge ape with a turkey's tail and duck's feet, there."

"I don't need explanations, thanks," he observed with dignified politeness.

"No? What is that, then?"

She pointed to a sketch.

He studied it earnestly.

"Er—it's a conglomeration—boots—" he paused, reddened, "and a collar."

She laughed.

"It's meant for a salmon with a cravat round its neck, and a pair of top-boots, only I can't draw a salmon to save my life!"

He looked injured.

"I knew what all the rest were!"

She took the sheet from him. He moved towards the door.

"Will you give O'Brien my message?"

"You're not going! Please put up with me till the others come in. I'll just go and wash my hands. Sit down."

She came back presently, gave a piece of coal a poke with her foot, sat down, looked into the red heart of the fire, then across at him.

"Do you really like a motor better than a horse?" she said.

He stared at her, astonished.

"A motor—better than a horse? Great Scott, no! What made you ask?"

"Well, you drive about in a motor."

"Oh, yes, the governor has a ripping car. And for getting about the country—real long trips, you know—they're splendid. But of course, they don't come under the same heading as horses at all."

"I've been hoarding that up against you," she declared frankly.

"Have you?" He looked amused. "It seems so queer to me—I never look upon them in the same light at all."

"Motors are horrid things."

"I don't think so."

"The dust—the smell—"

"Don't affect you when you're in one."

"But they affect other people."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"They're real selfish things!" he laughed. "When you're motoring, you don't care a hang for that sort of thing. You just go tearing along—monarch of all you survey."

"And—dogs?"

He smiled. "I've never run over one yet, unless they die like martyrs without a groan."

"Well, they may be useful," she conceded. "But the feeling can't be anything like the glory of a gallop—a canter—"

"No, it isn't. Nothing can come anywhere near a decent mount, and a good stretch of country before you."

They fell silent for a while.

Nell, furtively studying him, as he sat forward in his chair looking into the fire, broke out at last.

"Mr. Lancaster, you've no business to look so—so pale—so done up!"

He flushed.

"Do I? Overwork, perhaps."

She bent toward him; she said softly:—

"Do you mind my noticing? Denis always lets me fuss if he cuts his finger or anything like that."

"I was riding this morning," the words seemed to be dragged from him against his will; "I expect I overdid it."

Her pretty eyes opened wide.

"You needn't think I'm just a weakly idiot," he burst out angrily.

"I don't. You've had an illness?"

He nodded.

She sighed suggestively. He looked at her, and smiled unwillingly.

"It was nearly six months ago now." He frowned and paused. "Accident—horse had to be shot."

"Oh!" She waited.

"It was a beastly motor omnibus—poor old Pilot bolted. We had a fight—I'd nearly got him under—and a fool of a boy came tearing round a corner yelling and waving a hoop in the air. Pilot bolted straight into a shop window—had to be shot."

She shivered. "And you?"

"Oh, I broke a leg, and cracked my skull, and broke a few ribs. Went to bed for a while. Then got up—went out for a walk—got drenched through—pneumonia and pleurisy—eternal bed. Hard lines, wasn't it?"

"Who nursed you?"

"Two of 'em. When I was a bit off my head you wouldn't believe how they worried me. You see, one had a red face and a blaze of red-gold hair, and the other had a great, pale moon-face and black hair, and the red-gold one was the night nurse, and the pale one the day nurse. I got sort of mixed and thought one was the sun and the other the moon, and I yelled and shouted and made such a row that they had to change! I couldn't stand having the sun blazing at night, and the moon by day. Funny, wasn't it?"

Nell was looking into the fire.

"Where were you?"

"House in Gowan Square, you know."

"But who—nursed you?"

"Those two poor things. I believe I led them an awful life—when I wasn't off my head, too! I got so beastly sick of it—" He stopped abruptly.

"Wasn't there anyone—I mean—your aunt—" But her voice died on the word, as she pictured that lady, with her bangles, her chains, rattling in a sick room.

A twinkle crept into his eye.

"They hate sick rooms, and," gravely, "they excited me."

She smiled.

"So you just had those two nurses?"

"And the doctor. I've got an awfully decent cousin—second cousin—down in Cornwall. She's married—has two little girls—she'd have come up, but one of them was ill."

She was silent.

"I'm awfully strong, though," he protested anxiously. "Yesterday I whined to the doctor because I can't do things same as I used to, yet, and he said, 'If you weren't as strong as a horse, you'd have been dead twice over by now!' He's got Irish blood in his veins, I fancy!"

She smiled absently.

"Why aren't you down in the country?"

"I did go for a while, but you see—well, I'm going up to Cambridge as soon as Dr. Murray will let me, and I don't want to get too far behind. So I'm attending classes and that sort of thing—as much as I'm allowed," with a rueful smile.

"I think," said Nell, in her charming, softest voice, "you're just a hero!"

"A—a what? Good Heavens, what have I done? What have I been saying?"

She turned suddenly, unheeding his ludicrous dismay, and stretching across, opened a little drawer in the table. She took out a bundle of photographs and handed him one.

"That's Acushla!" she said with a queer little breathless note in her voice. "I had to sell her."

He glanced at her swiftly, and looked down at the photograph. Nell was making amends. In her rush of disgust at all the unkind things she had thought of him, in the pity that made her heart ache, she instinctively took him close as a friend.

"That is the Colleen Bawn. She belonged to all of us. Dad bought her for fourteen pounds of an awful old pedler! She looked dreadful; you could count all her ribs—and dirty—and her tail! Well, it isn't very grand there, but I don't believe it had more than fourteen hairs in it when dad bought her—pound a hair, we always said. She was lame, and had a great bare patch on her right shoulder. But we fattened her up, and groomed her, and you wouldn't believe how she could go! And jump! She'd jump anything, if she saw anything in front of her. That was her fad. She couldn't stand anyone's getting in front of her. She's taken me clear over a wall that even Denis's best hunter can't manage without knocking down a stone or two. She's rather big and bony, but there's something rather fine about her head, I think."

He nodded.

"That's a jolly colt!"

"He is Sheila Pat's. We haven't sold him. We dared not. I believe it would have made her ill—really ill, I mean. The parting nearly did, in any case."

She showed him all the photographs—even the dim ones that needed to be looked at very closely, when, with time and patience, a horse, perhaps several horses, mostly jumping or galloping, and riders would slowly disentangle themselves from the surrounding gloom.

"I confess that our climate isn't an ideal one for taking photographs!" she laughed. "Most of those were taken in the rain or a mist." She rose. "I want to show you something else."

She fetched a little oil painting of Acushla.

"By Jove!" he said, and studied it in silence.

"Mr. O'Neil—my master—says it's the best thing I've ever done."

"It's splendid! She's a beauty! Just look at her legs—and the colour. What a glorious little beast she is! I don't know when I've seen a more beautiful head and shape."

"Mr. O'Neil came upon me just when I'd done that, and he burst out, 'Good! Good! Good!' He doesn't believe in praise, you know, and directly he'd said that he pulled himself up. 'But might be better!' he said, and he glared into my face, and groaned out: 'I believe you're pleased with it! I wash my hands of you! You'll never be a painter! Go away! You should be weeping that you can't do better!' It took all my eloquence to convince him that I didn't think it was good, only better work than I had been doing. But I made him laugh, by representing how pleased he'd be if he always came upon me sitting weeping into my pinny, and then he cheered up, and slanged my poor little painting with tremendous energy!"

"Beast!"

"He's a dear old man, but he has a theory that complacency is the curse of art. He declares that talent is choked by it, and so never rises. You should always be dissatisfied with your work—always feel you must do better, or die in the attempt. Now, if I were to listen to your praise, it would do me incalculable harm, according to him."

He smiled whimsically.

"I don't think even he'd mind my praise!"

"I don't agree with him," she pursued thoughtfully, "unless, of course, a person is naturally conceited and complacent, and then I don't think it matters one way or the other; the person will remain complacent anyway. But I think a little praise cheers one up! I'm just delighted you think that good!"

"It's more than good," earnestly.

"Oh, if he could hear you! And me!"

She stooped to pick up from the floor a sheet of foreign note-paper scrawled over with large uneven writing.

"Sheila Pat," she said, "to-morrow's mail day. We write an awful lot. But we can't get any letters from them yet."

She took the photographs from him and put them away in the drawer.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

She turned to him with a little laugh, and held out her hand.

"I've been awfully mean—had mean thoughts about you—been rude to you." Her words tumbled out in a soft little jumble. "I'm sorry."

He grasped her hand.

"Not you—I say—" he stammered.

"I'm going to call you Ted, and you may call me Nell. I feel as if I've known you for ages, and the other's so stiff, and we'll be friends 'till the sun has burnt itself down to the bigness of a farthing rushlight,' shall we?"

"Er—yes—"

She teased him, her dimples dancing.

"Say, 'Yes, Nell!'"

"Yes, N-N-Nell!"

CHAPTER XVIII

Christmas was drawing very near. The stock of stuffed animals was growing large; toys overflowed the Stronghold. A pillow-case, purloined from the bed in the spare room, did duty as a bag to hold some of them. In a spasm of artistic joy Nell had painted a rough sketch of a hunting scene on it, and they lived in terror that Miss Kezia would see it.

The doll's house was furnished throughout; in the bedroom two little dolls in white night-dresses lay in bed. In the dining room three sat at the table. They had intended to dress two more for the nursery, but Nell, having put in the last stitch on the fifth doll, flung it down on to the table, jumped up: "Denis, come dance with me! Not another hateful little doll will I touch! They drive me crazy! Little, fiddley things! I'm doing enough sewing lately to canonise me as Saint Eileen of the needle!"

They waltzed out on to the landing and down the stairs, improvising fancy steps to a tune Denis carolled out as they went. Into the kitchen they came, round the table they danced, while Sarah gaped.

"Bet I can do an Irish jig on the garden wall!" declared Denis suddenly.

"So can I!"

It was in the height of the jig that Miss Kezia and a friend who was paying her an afternoon call looked forth into the garden. All along, back windows were up, and heads looking out. For Denis had a beautiful voice and he sang as he danced—rather spasmodically, as one foot and then the other landed on space instead of the wall, but very heartily.

Miss Kezia's friend was a somewhat prim and stiff-necked matron, and she was a good deal scandalised. Miss Kezia was considerably annoyed; but before she could open the window, the jig stopped abruptly, Denis leapt from the wall and after him Nell, and both started in chase of a small figure which had come out into the garden and defied them to catch it.

Mysterious shopping expeditions took place about this time. The Atom, not allowed to go out alone, chose Sarah as her escort while she purchased Christmas presents. Miss Kezia unexpectedly gave her sanction to the arrangement. A queer sort of mutual recognition of worth had grown up between the Atom and Miss Kezia. Sheila Pat discussed her gravely with Nell.

"I do think she's worthy, Nell. Sarah says she is, and she says she wouldn't leave here because you never know what you might get. She's very just, you see. Some mistresses are awful; they blame you for things like the taps leakin' and the chimney smokin', when they're cross. Aunt Kezia never does. I think she's rather nice to talk to sometimes," thoughtfully, "and she's very honest—she told me she was always quite ugly, and she's got some beautiful animals all worked in silk that her mother did when she was quite young, and you see, she can't help bein' borned Scotch!"

On her part Miss Kezia went so far as, "I do not understand Sheila, but there is a solid layer of goodness beneath her eccentricities." The truth was, Miss Kezia, angry, bewildered, worried, as she so often was in these days, nevertheless found an unexpected partiality developing within her for the young O'Briens,—an unexpected recognition of their charm.

What with finishing presents, buying them, packing up the hospital toys, and fighting various little imps who whispered things about this time last year, they found those days before Christmas pretty full.

One evening some carollers came and sang lustily in the road outside the house. As they began, the front door was opened and Miss Kezia's grim voice bade them begone. But upstairs there was a wild scamper to a bedroom window—it was flung up—and pennies came hurtling through the air—"Go on! Please, go on!" and voices at the window joined lustily in. For the song the carollers sang was "Rory O'More."

"Young Rory O'More courted Kathaleen bawn,

He was bold as a hawk, and she soft as the dawn;

He wish'd in his heart pretty Kathleen to please,

And he thought the best way to do that was to tease.

'Now, Rory, be aisy,' sweet Kathleen would cry,

Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye,

'With your tricks I don't know, in troth, what I'm about;

Faith, you've teaz'd till I've put on my cloak inside out.'

'Oh, jewel!' says Rory, 'that same is the way

You've thrated my heart for this many a day,

And 'tis plaz'd that I am, and why not, to be sure?

For 'tis all for good luck,' says bold Rory O'More."

The voices at the window started the next verse:—

"'Indeed, then,' says Kathleen, 'don't think of the like,

For I half gave a promise to soothering Mike;

The ground that I walk on he loves, I'll be bound.'

'Faith,' says Rory, 'I'd rather love you than the ground.'

'Now, Rory, I'll cry, if you don't let me go;

Sure I dream ev'ry night that I'm hating you so!'

'Oh!' says Rory, 'that same I'm delighted to hear,

For dhrames always go by contraries, my dear.'

'Now, Rory, leave off, sir. You'll hug me no more;

That's eight times to-day, that you've kissed me before.'

'Then here goes another,' says he, 'to make sure,

For there's luck in odd numbers,' says Rory O'More."

As the last words rang out Nell flung down a sixpence.

"A Merry Christmas!"

"Shure and 'tis afther the same I'd be wishing you entirely, at all, at all!" came the sonorous response. "Shure and 'tis the Oirish are afther being the gradely folks on this earrth, me beautiful honour, your leddyship!"

"You're not Irish!" shrilled out an indignant little voice.

"Och, begorra, and would yez be insulting us now, at all, at all, your honour? Shure 'tis the Oirish we are, thin, and long may they live, hoots toots! Ochone!"

Nell flung down a piece of holly she was wearing in her waist belt; she flung it waveringly, overcome with mirth.

Denis shouted aloud. Of all of them the Atom alone refused to even smile.

"I object to hypocrites," she said dignifiedly.

"I wonder how they found out we are Irish?" pondered Molly.

"I suppose it was just an odd coincidence—their singing 'Rory O'More,' and then they found out by our brogues!" laughed Nell.

It was that same evening that, fired by "Rory O'More," they left their toys and trooped down to the cold drawing-room and sang and played. Sheila Pat, leaving the room for something, found Herr Schmidt on the mat outside the door, listening.

"I lof ze music so much!" he excused himself hurriedly. "It was so beautiful—the lovely voices—full of music! You will pardon me, Fräulein?"

Sheila Pat bowed.

"With the greatest pleasure. Please come in."

Later on he begged them to use his piano any time they wished.

"We must finish packing the hospital toys to-night!" said Nell, and sped up the stairs.

A few minutes later Ted came in.

"How are you, N-N-Nell?"

"Quite well, thank you, T-T-Ted."

"Sheila Pat," tweaking her pig-tail, "don't they grow straight pig-tails in Ireland?"

"Please don't be foolish," said Sheila Pat, ramming a fur rabbit into the box.

He looked at Nell and raised his eyebrows.

"Sheila Pat's cross still, aren't you, Atom?" Nell said.

"I'm innoyed."

"Tell me about it," he begged.

Denis glanced up from a letter he was writing, then bent his head again.

"Two wicked hypocrites came and they told stories, too. He said he was Irish! Irish, was it? Sure 'twas sooner goriller-monkeys they'd be! They sang outside, and we gave them some money. Did they think we were unborned babies that they'd be sayin' they were Irish?"

"What a double-dyed villain!" Ted said with grave disapproval.

"I'd knew you wouldn't be laughin' and thinkin' it funny." She paused to watch Nell.

Nell was coming straight at Ted; once in front of him, she pointed a tragic forefinger first at a sixpence that dangled on his watch-chain, and then at a spray of holly in his button-hole.

He gazed back at her amusedly.

"Sheila Pat! Molly! Out on him! Oh, the thraitor! The wicked thraitor! Don't you see? It was Ted—Ted Lancaster! Behold, the holly! Behold, my ill-gotten sixpence! Mine own familiar friend! What shall we do to him? Girls, what shall we do to him?"

Sheila Pat, her face scarlet, ran at him, and tried futilely to shake him. He seized her and swung her aloft. From her lofty perch she scornfully attacked him. "Sure I would have thought you'd be spakin' it better than that! How old are you? O dear, what great boobies these English boys are! Hoots toots, indeed! And who was the other monkey-kangaroo, then?"

"Little Foster. You don't know him. Thought it looked better to have two, and, you see, I was too shy to sing all alone! Aren't you going to forgive me, acushlums? Och, begorra, I've been learning that 'Rory O'More' a whole week all for your benefit!"

"Nell,"—he began presently.

"Bravo, Ted!" she interpolated.

He flushed and laughed.

"Well, Nell," he resumed, "how did you find out so quickly?"

"That gossoon," nodding at Denis. "I saw by his face. He never can keep anything in. And to think he knew! And let me waste my substance on a wicked fraud of a Ted!"

"I recognised him almost at once," observed Denis.

Nell's eye had grown suddenly absent, preoccupied with thoughts of something else. She rose and sidled, with what she thought deep artfulness, but which a child could have seen through, toward the artistic pillow-case. She had caught sight of the deep emerald green silk tie she was knitting for Ted sticking up in full view, gazing brazenly at Ted himself, she declared.

Fortunately he was engaged just then with the Atom, so saw nothing of Nell's transparent manoeuvring.

"Sure the very babies themselves," said Sheila Pat, earnestly, "speak it better than that!"

"Do they, Sheila Pat? How clever the Irish must be!"

"Of course they are," said Sheila Pat.

CHAPTER XIX

Christmas came with a rush in the end.

"Santa Claus," said Nell, "has not a well-regulated mind. For the weeks before Christmas he rides at a leisurely trot, looking about him, smiling. Then suddenly he finds there isn't time for half he's got to do, and off he gallops—over hedges of toys—ditches of sweets—up hills of mince pies and puddings—sends us all scattering here and there on his errands—I wonder why he always muddles it like that?"

"Perhaps the old chap's Irish," suggested Ted.

Christmas eve found her with the painting of Kate Kearney for Sarah not finished; with Ted's tie in the same condition; with Denis's present still unbought; with half Molly's not got yet, and innumerable little bits and things to do. The others were in much the same case.

But all the hospital toys had been sent off, and Mrs. Jones presented with the doll's house and other presents for Benny and Janie and Susan. On that last day Sheila Pat went out with Sarah. (Never had Sarah enjoyed herself so much as on these shopping expeditions, during which sometimes a smug-faced young man of an infinite respectability met them, nearly overcome with surprise at the strange coincidence of his being just there while they were just there, too.)—Sheila Pat went out with Sarah and bought Ted's present. She came home, fairly glowing and clasping a small parcel tight in both hands.

"Oh, Nell!" she said.

Nell bundled something under her pinafore and tried to look innocent.

"What is it, Atom?"

"I've got a present for Ted—I've been lookin' and lookin'—oh, Nell!"

"Show it me."

The Atom was unwrapping the paper. Beneath was a little cardboard box; in it lay a vividly green painted shamrock with a large diamond in the centre. It represented a tie pin, and had cost a shilling and a halfpenny.

For Stewart she bought two large cabbages. "Won't Peter have a lovely Christmas dinner?" she queried ecstatically. "And he'll be so sad, you see, with Tommy and his mother away a whole week!"

That afternoon Nell and Molly came suddenly face to face in a draper's shop, and exactly as they did it, up came the bland shop-walker to know what they wanted. He stared with dignified disapproval, as they stood there and laughed and laughed. Nell wanted a charming little useless fancy box for Molly that she had seen in the window, and Molly wanted a little handkerchief for Nell.

"I—er—oh!" Nell laughed ridiculously and Molly turned, giggling, and fled from the shop.

Nell made a valiant effort, "I want a little bancy fox—oh!" and she fled after Molly.

Outside she stood and laughed helplessly. A little way farther up the street she could see Molly, and the knowledge that she too was trying to overcome her giggles made matters much worse.

Neither she nor Molly alluded to that meeting till after Christmas. There was a very strict O'Brien etiquette on such matters.