THE YOUNG O'BRIENS (continued 5)

"I shall forbid all intercourse between you and Master Lancaster for a month!"

There was a sudden movement, an uplifting of heads, a very definite and unmistakable change in the faces confronting her.

"Aunt Kezia—" Denis began, and his tone left nothing to the imagination with regard to the nature of the thing he meant to say. Miss Kezia cut in with sudden and very wise haste:—

"No, I shall not do that, but I shall write to your parents by this mail, and tell them how you failed to behave with any decorum in my absence. Now you may go."

They did go. They fled.

CHAPTER XXVII

Nell rose with a headache.

"I never," said she, "owned such a thing at home!"

She went to the window and looked out. A dingy grey fog hung over everything; the garden walls were wet.

"The fourth day that has been foggy and raw and liquid with mud!"

Sheila Pat trotted back into the room, her small face pinched, her teeth shut tight to prevent their chattering.

"Sheila Pat, you've had a cold bath!"

"I let the hot tap run a minute."

"And the hot water was tepid. Come here."

"I'm busy, Nell."

Nell went across and seized the shivering little body. Even through the bath-robe she could feel how cold it was. She started rubbing her down with a rough towel.

"You're awfully tiresome, Sheila Pat. If you will be such a baby, I shall have to come and get your bath ready myself."

"Y-you all have cold s-sponges!" sulked Sheila Pat, with chattering teeth.

"And so will you when you've grown bigger and stronger. Didn't Dr. McCarthy tell you so?"

"Is it s-strong? Feel my muscles! I j-just love icy-c-cold baths!"

"You look as if you do!"

"I think you're v-very rude, Nell O'Brien!" The Atom, after this dignified retort, relapsed into a cold silence.

"Now go and get Molly up, there's a good Atom," Nell said when Sheila Pat was clothed. "I can hear she's not moving."

The Atom departed.

"She's up now," she announced on her return.

"Well up?"

"I dipped her sponge in the jug, and squeezed it on her feet. She's very cross."

"I daresay she is. You're an ingenious little torturer, Sheila Pat."

Presently a wild-haired Molly burst into the room.

"Oh, Nell, I can't find any hair-ribbons, and my comb has tumbled down—I stuck it in the window to stop it rattling, and it's tumbled out—"

Nell interrupted, "Here's a comb and here's a ribbon."

"And Sheila Pat's made my bed all wet!"

"Hurry up! You've only three minutes, and you were late down yesterday, you know."

"Oh, Nell, do wait for me! I simply can't come into that room with Aunt Kezia's eye on me and grim silence!"

Sheila Pat had shut the door on her.

After breakfast the fog deepened, yellowed; Nell, with her mouth set obstinately, got out her canvas and brushes, and began to paint.

"Nell, you can't see to paint!" exclaimed Molly.

"I know I can't."

"Then what are you painting for?"

Nell squeezed out cobalt blue recklessly.

"My dear child, if we're to live in a place where it's always foggy, I've got to learn to paint in a thick yellow atmosphere, with the gas alight one minute and out the next. D'you think I'm not going to practise for the next hundred years? Sheila Pat, don't go near K.K.! You'll rouse her! Oh, why is she black? Do go on with your copy."

"I don't wish ever to write like my copy," said the Atom, stiffening her straight little back, "so what's the use of doin' it now?"

"Well, you've got to!" said Nell.

Sheila Pat arose.

"Sheila Pat, where are you going?"

"To fetch my snowy-breasted Pearl. I'm afraid he'll be breakin' his heart, all alone so long."

"You're to come straight back, then."

"I don't want to, Nell!"

"Well, you are to."

"I want to take him to visit Herr Smit, Nell."

Nell eyed the little heavy black mass that on ordinary days was Kate Kearney, and savagely harked back with, "I don't think a lodger's landlady's belongings should worry him at all times of the day!"

She blushed and dabbed angrily at her canvas.

Sheila Pat paused, and thought.

Intolerable, biting irritation possessed Nell. The room cramped her unbearably; painting drove her mad; everyone worried her; sick anger at it all goaded her.

"Sheila Pat, go and fetch your Pearl at once, and bring him straight back here!"

Sheila Pat eyed her interestedly.

"Eileen O'Brien, you got out of your bed the wrong side this morning!" she observed, and walked from the room. Molly looked at Nell commiseratingly.

"I know," she said, "we never have these horrid yellow fogs at—"

Nell stopped the word before it left her lips, with a wildly impatient:—

"Oh, be quiet!"

"I only meant—"

"I know you did! Go on with your history."

"But—"

Nell looked at her.

"If you say another word, Molly O'Brien, I shall yell!"

Denis came in.

He looked at her with her hair pushed up and laughed.

"Golliwog, what's happened to your hair?"

She looked away from him, fighting a weak inclination to go to him and cry.

"Nothing," she said.

"Painting in this light! Why, Nell, you must be crazy!"

"I daresay I am. I'm sick of never being able to paint—"

"But a dense fog!"

"It's always dense fog in London."

"Headache?" he queried.

"It's my temper that aches, I think."

She put down her palette, and gave a little laugh.

"Head, too?" he persisted.

"That I should have to own to such a thing! A little."

"It's boiled mutton for lunch; Sarah just told me so. I'll go and tell Aunt Kezia you must have something else. What would you like? Chicken? Sole?"

She laughed helplessly.

"Denis, I see her face! No—really—"

She stopped him. "I couldn't touch either. I'm not hungry. I'll have some pudding."

"It's rice puddin'," put in Sheila Pat, her words annotated by protesting squeaks. The Pearl objected to being taken from his cage.

Nell, feeling momentarily more sane, declared valiantly that rice pudding would do nicely.

Aunt Kezia was sorry that boiled mutton did not meet with her approval, so she said.

The Atom was the first to answer her.

"Approval, is it? And would you be approvalin' it with a headache, Aunt Kezia?"

It was a Saturday. Denis had suggested Madam Tussaud's for the afternoon. Now he declared he didn't think Nell was fit to come with them. She did not feel fit herself, but she wouldn't own it. She was very prickly, and somehow he rubbed her the wrong way,—"Oh, very well, if they'd rather go without her!" Up flared one of those quick Irish outbursts. Nell found herself alone. She sang loudly, listening intently for the shutting of the front door.

"''Twas down at Ballina Fair,

Cailins and boys were gaily tripping it there,

And I the soul of the spree,

When I set eyes on Kitty Magee.

Her smile so sweet, her step so neat,

Hide and seek her two little feet;

Gliding just like a swan at sea,

Handsome, winsome Kitty Magee.

And now I'm dreaming all day,

Sighing from dark to dawn, and wasting away,

Like a lone bird on a tree,

Pining the long hours through for Kitty Magee,

At dance or wake no—"

Bang!

The song died abruptly.

The hopeless muddle on the easel was dabbed at, made more and more oily.

"Eileen!"

Nell went out on to the landing.

"Yes, Aunt Kezia?"

"Please clean your brushes and put away your paints and all that smells so horribly, at once! The house reeks, and I have a friend coming to see me this afternoon!"

Nell said, "Yes, Aunt Kezia," and a gleam lit her eye. She went back to the Stronghold, and washed her brushes with slow care in turpentine. There was an air of waiting about her. She lifted Jim into his cage, and dropped it behind the lounge. Presently an irate voice rang up the stairs:—

"Eileen! Eileen!"

Ah expression of grim satisfaction overspread her features. The voice ascended with its owner.

"How dare you, Eileen? What is this horrible smell?"

"Smell, Aunt Kezia? Do you mean the turps?"

"I suppose so! It is filthy! I told you I expect a visitor. It is positively disgraceful—"

"You told me to wash my brushes, Aunt Kezia."

Nell's tone was as soft as butter.

"Certainly I told you to! You are being unwarrantably impertinent! You—"

"But I am only washing my brushes as you told me, Aunt Kezia!"

"What do you mean?"

"You have to wash them in turpentine, Aunt Kezia."

Miss Kezia had a moment of hesitation; her face reddened.

Nell dipped a brush into the tin washer.

"Then cease washing them at once! Open the window, and keep the door shut."

She closed the door behind her with such a very decisive click that it might almost have been designated a bang. Nell smiled wryly. She cleared up a little, then went to the window and looked out. Kate Kearney came to her, and begged to look, too. Nell sat down, and K.K. jumped into her lap.

"They don't allow dogs at Madame Tussaud's, K.K. Bad taste. But they do allow Nells—even bad-tempered ones; but she wasn't wanted, you see. Oh, K.K., you must get off!"

She rose restlessly. She looked down at a pathetic Kate Kearney, and exclaimed suddenly:—

"We'll go for a walk!"

The pathos of Kate Kearney vanished in a black whirl of ecstatic body and tail.

Nell went to put on her boots.

"We'll go for a long, long walk, and we'll come back on top of an omnibus, K.K. It's such a glorious day for a walk, isn't it? Oh, heavenly! But we'll go."

In the hall they came upon Miss Kezia. Nell's slim body stiffened suddenly; a feeling of desperation seized her.

"You are going to take that dog out on a day like this! I cannot allow it! Think of its feet when it comes in!"

Nell found that she had to moisten her dry lips; she took a moment or two to choke back unexpectedly rude words. She said then in an even tone:—

"I'll carry her upstairs, Aunt Kezia."

"But when it gets there! The carpet! Ruining my carpet!"

"I'll put her on her rug till she's dry."

"Microbes!" Miss Kezia said.

There was a little, pregnant silence. Nell's face had grown suddenly hot; she felt she dared not trust her tongue to speak again; she was shaken with longing to be very rude to Miss Kezia.

Miss Kezia hesitated, then she said:—

"Very well. And make her stay on her rug, and you had better not go far; the fog is deepening again."

Nell went out into the street. At the corner she met Ted.

"You? Where are the others?" he asked innocently, showing faint surprise.

"At Madame Tussaud's. Good-bye," she said.

"Where are you off to, Nell?"

"A walk—-a long walk—" Something prompted her to add, "just me and Kate Kearney."

"You needn't be afraid that I shall offer my escort. Am I allowed to suggest that it's beginning to sleet, and that the fog is getting thicker?"

The deadly politeness of his tone afforded her a small satisfaction.

"You may suggest what you like," she assured him, "only—do you mind suggesting it to the lamp-post? It's cold standing here."

"Oh, certainly. I've never come to embracing a lamp-post yet, but I daresay it's better to talk to than some people are!"

The grand sweep with which he raised his hat, and the dignified sarcasm of his tone, lifted the words above mere childishness.

Nell walked on down Gardiner Street. The fact that she could not help feeling that it would be comfortable to have Ted's sturdy figure beside her irritated her.

She felt a touch on her arm. Through the yellowing fog Ted smiled at her.

"I say, Nell, I can't stand it! You'd be on my conscience. You know you don't know your way about a bit, and if the fog comes down—"

She began to smile warmly.

"Since Denis has deserted you," cheerfully he blundered, "you'll let me order you about, eh?"

The "eh" held a suddenly surprised inflection, brought about by the change in her face.

"You're downright impertinent!" she stormed. "Do go away! How can you thrust yourself where you're not wanted?"

She hurried on, leaving silence behind her.

The lamps were alight; they shone pale and blurred through the fog. The lights from the shops made little pathways of misty light across the pavement. It was very raw, the air was bitter, wet, laden with sleet. She had not brought an umbrella with her; she was so unused to umbrellas. She turned up the collar of her coat, and valiantly suppressed a shiver. Kate Kearney trotted dejectedly at her heels.

"We will go for a long walk, K.K., won't we? And then we will take an omnibus back again. There are always omnibuses in London to take one everywhere.... Some people are so fussy and frumpish, aren't they?"

She was in dull, quiet streets; the effect of the tall houses, wet, ghostlike in the fog, was gloomy, weird. They got on her nerves, set them jarring. A deep depression seized upon her; she ceased trying to fight it. She was too cold, too wretched. She found herself suddenly in a dirty, noisy street, amongst innumerable barrows, innumerable ragged children. Everyone was shouting, it seemed to her; their voices were hideous. Everyone jostled her. She was afraid, horribly afraid. It was all so squalid, so inexpressibly sordid. She shrank back appalled. The noise set her head throbbing and aching. Through the fog she could discern an unending stream of traffic; she could see omnibuses. But to get to one she must slip between two barrows—venture into that muddy road. She hesitated, went on nervously, at a loss. She walked up the Hampstead Road, and came out upon Euston Road, where numberless omnibuses were drawn up. The noise was worse than before. She tried to find out which was her omnibus by listening to the conductors' raucous voices. She was deafened by the din.

"King's Cross! Baker Street! 'Ammersmith! Victoria!"

She approached the nearest conductor, and asked if he went to Henley Road.

"What road, miss?"

"Henley Road."

'"Enley Road? Where is it, miss?"

"It,"—she faltered, at a loss,—"oh," brightening—"it leads out of Gardiner Street!"

"Never 'eard of it, miss."

"It's not very far from Horton Square."

"Oh, we don't go anywhere near there."

He hopped on to his step and rang the bell.

She stood on the curb, looking at the other omnibuses with a weary disinclination to ask again. She held Kate Kearney in her arms, in terror of the traffic. A boy was shouting almost in her ear: "Star! Daring burglary by d'ylight! Star! Murder in the West End! Evening News! Duke of Oldchester run over by a motor! Great Strike in Nottingham! Families starving!..."

She turned from him with a sense of physical repulsion. She went forward and accosted another conductor.

"That dawg with you, miss? Can't take a dawg in a 'bus! Not allowed, miss!"

He shouted as a consolatory afterthought: "'E can run alongside, you know!"

She gave a sudden hysterical little laugh. She glanced at the crowded road, and down at Kate Kearney, cowering in her arms. She moved forward slowly, not knowing which way Henley Road lay. She was tired out; she had never felt so tired and forlorn in all her life. The sea of people, of traffic, the noise, the shouts, bewildered her, dazed her. She moved away hurriedly from the newspaper boys, who seemed, to her shrinking fancy, to be gloating with aggressive noise over endless horrors.

"We—we've got to walk back, K.K. I've only sixpence, so we can't drive at all. Oh, K.K.—I—I'm going to cry—"

"Expect you'll bite my head off, but you've just got to put up with me!"

Out of the yellow fog—out of the chaotic nightmarish hubbub—a broad-shouldered figure, a gruff, sulky voice, suddenly became clear to her.

"Oh!" she gasped.

Ted took hold of her elbow and shouldered his way through the crowd. She submitted weakly, occupied chiefly in swallowing ignominious tears. She found herself being helped into a hansom. She heard him say, "Fuller's—Regent Street." Then he seated himself beside her.

"Is it—a station?" she asked.

"No. You're going to have some tea before you go home."

"Oh!"

There was a silence. She cudgelled dull brains for something to say, then having found it, turned it over and over in her mind, distrusting her voice, till it grew silly and meaningless, and she let it go. The silence got on her nerves; she almost began to laugh helplessly; she burst out in an odd voice:—

"W-what a funny action the horse has!"

"Took the first that came. Couldn't wait to pick and choose."

"Of course not," she hurried to agree with meek haste.

The silence fell again. She cast a swift glance at Ted's profile; it was very grim and very cross. She couldn't let the silence last; it worried her past bearing.

"Kate Kearney is getting perky," she said.

"Yes?" said Ted.

She began wildly:—

"Ted—I—I—" and stopped.

He did not help her, and she said no more.

Presently the cab came to a standstill, and he helped her out. They went in, past the tempting sweets, on to warmth and lightness. The rush for tea was over, and there were not many people left now. They secured a little table and sat down.

"What'll you have?" he said curtly.

"Oh—anything."

He ordered tea and tea-cake. The band struck up with a selection from a popular musical play. She looked round quickly.

"Oh, how lovely!"

She poured out tea; he accepted his cup with a brief "thanks." She bent across the table to him.

"Would you mind listening? I'm sure I'm purring all over."

There was a tentative smile in her eyes.

"Tea-cake?" he said.

She took a piece with a sigh. Suddenly her laugh rang out, deliciously gay and glad. Coaxingly she bent towards him.

"Don't be cross, Ted! I'm so happy!"

He frowned.

"It was ridiculous of you," he began.

"I know it was!" with gay insouciance. "But this isn't the way to punish me, is it?" Her voice sank softly; she was radiant in the joy of the reaction. "You wouldn't be spoiling it all, Teddie?" she coaxed.

Unwillingly, his mouth relaxed into a smile; he caught it back with a quick, bad-tempered indrawing of his lips.

"You'd better know—first—I followed you! Now bite my head off!"

Her eyes opened wide.

"All—the—way?" she said slowly.

He nodded.

"Why, Ted, how awfully sweet of you!" in a soft and very unexpected rush. "Fancy taking all that trouble! Bite your head off? Why, I think it was just lovely of you!"

His glum face cleared.

"And my head's gone! gone! gone!" she laughed.

He glanced at it inquiringly.

"Oh, well, the ache thereof."

Presently she sighed loudly and with suggestive reproach.

"To think that all the time nice, cross, comfy you were there behind me! I wish I'd known!"

He compressed his lips humorously.

"Don't be mean!" she laughed. "More tea?" As she handed him his cup:—

"Ted, you're not to be feeling superior just because I got into a muddle and you pulled me out! If it had been a bog now, it would have been the other way about! But yellow fog, and—" she gave a little shudder—"the newspaper boys! But I ask you, how was a sane person, in other words, an Irish person, to guess that omnibuses would refuse to allow dogs in them? All the same," softly, "I'm feeling just now that man is a noble animal, and woman a mere headless and rudderless cipher. But I warn you it won't last."

"Wish it would," he said, giving K.K. a piece of cake.

"Ah, then, you are feeling superior! Ted, what would you have done if I had had hysterics when I caught sight of you? Oh, I'm so happy!"

"Eat something," he urged.

She looked round the room, then out at the fog, and smiled on him.

He looked at her with sudden seriousness.

"Nell, remember another time if you're in a hole—"

"The hole doesn't exist that'll ever get a chance of seeing me again!" She dismissed it airily.

"Well, anyhow, when that frame of mind's worn off—"

"You mean when I'm in a howling temper again," she interpolated, pursing her mouth.

"Perhaps. Well, remember, take a hansom!"

"But I couldn't. I'd only sixpence with me."

"Doesn't matter. You pay up the other end. You could get it when you arrived."

"Oh, do you? I didn't know. You don't in omnibuses."

"No, you don't in omnibuses."

She rested her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands.

"Shall I try to thank you, Ted?"

He flushed in horror.

"Good Lord, no! I say, have another cake."

She laughed softly.

"I don't want any more, thanks. I—"

"Do have some more tea."

She shook her head.

"If you'll let me speak—"

"You might give me some more, will you?"

She poured it out.

"I'm only trying to assure you I won't thank you!" she managed to say. "I won't, really. You've been too nice. I'll do just whatever you wish."

"Um!" he grunted.

She settled her elbows on the table again. She looked out straight before her, and her face grew thoughtful. There was a little silence. Then she looked at him and smiled; it was an odd little smile, half-humorous, half sad.

"I'm getting like that," she said, "all bad-tempered and horrid and cross! I was horrid to you, and to Denis,—to everyone. I—I used not to be grumpy and nasty. I'm just growing that way. In books they don't. When there's trouble and things all go wrong, they get sweeter and sweeter. I don't. I feel sometimes all shuddery with snappishness. I never used to feel like that—" Her voice died away in a plaintive little murmur.

"Books are all rot!" he declared vigorously.

"Oh, Ted, all of them?"

She was laughing again, but the shadow of wistfulness still clouded her eyes.

"All those with goody-goody heroines hanging around like dying ducks in a thunder-storm!" he asserted.

"You don't mind if I'm horrid and grumpy, then?"

"Not a bit," he declared cheerfully.

She rose.

"You know you ought to have said that I never am horrid or grumpy. But no matter!"

"I've got a conscience to think of, you know," he suggested.

Outside, they found that the fog had cleared away, leaving a wet, cold world behind it.

"We'll choose our horse now," he said.

"Oh, how lovely! Here comes a hansom! Poor thing, his knees are rather awful. There's a better one—that big bay, Ted!"

"Got a fare already."

"Oh, I didn't think of that."

"We'll walk along. You wouldn't sooner have a crock from the rank, would you?"

"Don't insult me, Ted! Look—that grey! Oh, he's a beauty!"

"Put on the pace," Ted said to the man, and presently Nell was sighing with joy.

"I'd love to spend a whole day in hansoms! Ted, the moral's all wrong! I'm enjoying myself much too much. And never so much as one 'I-told-you-so' glance from you! It's hopelessly wrong!"

As they turned into Henley Road, she held out her hand.

"Shake," she said, "and—I'm not going to thank you, but—oh, Teddie, you are a brick!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

Towards morning on March 17 Miss Kezia dreamed. She was not often troubled with dreams, but on this occasion her dream was long and peculiarly vivid. She dreamed that she was passing through a narrow roadway, on either side of which great rocks rose high and precipitous. On these rocks men were at work, cutting, chiselling, hammering, and every sound they made rolled and rumbled and echoed amongst the rocks, till, in her dream, Miss Kezia's ears sang and buzzed in agony. As they worked the men sang and talked, and the rocks took up their voices, and flung them from one to another, till the noise was deafening. On she hurried, striving to get through the roadway, but it had the interminableness of dream roads, and Miss Kezia struggled in vain.

At seven o'clock she woke, because seven o'clock was the hour at which she invariably rose. On the 17th of March she rose four minutes later than usual, taking that time to ponder her dream and feel her pulse. She looked anxiously at herself in the peculiarly unflattering mirror on the toilet-table, but it showed her the same long Scotch face as usual, and the green tinge imparted by the glass was no greener than it always was. Miss Kezia considered dreams a weakness due to illness or a diseased imagination, but halfway through her toilet a voice broke out:—

"'Oh! Paddy dear, and did you hear the news that's going round?

The shamrock is forbid by law to grow on Irish ground;

Saint Patrick's day no more we'll keep, his colour can't be seen.

For there's a cruel law agin' the wearin' of the green....'"

Miss Kezia stood, the cold water trickling down her face, and experienced a queer sort of sensation. Where had she heard that tune—sad even to her tough senses—quite lately? Why did her dream suddenly descend upon her, the sense of it gripping her most unaccountably?

A scream of woe in Molly's most material voice, "Oh, I've hammered my thumb into the middle of next month!" and the heavy fall of a hammer roused her suddenly, sharply, to full realisation and understanding of her dream. To the accompaniment of a steady hammering she finished her ablutions with a grim and wrathful haste. She faced the unflattering mirror with a gleam in her eye, and pulled and screwed her hair into its accustomed tight knot. She finished her toilet, and then she left her room.

Green met her eye; whichever way she turned she encountered green. The balusters were draped with green muslin. The austere photograph of a long-faced ancestor hanging, a perpetual prim disdainer of the follies of youth, on the wall opposite her door, looked out now disapprovingly from beneath a coquettish green satin bow hanging over his very brows.

Sheila Pat came marching down the stairs, holding aloft the Irish flag.

"Are you all mad?" Miss Kezia queried wrathfully.

The Atom turned an eye alight with a far-away scorn upon her.

"It's St. Patrick's Day!" she said curtly, and marched on down the stairs.

Miss Kezia put up with a good deal that day. She sat at the breakfast-table and faced, with strong but silent disapproval, a green-draped window. She said no word even when Sarah wriggled shyly in, her diminutive cap adorned with a great green bow. But her eye followed the hot and abashed little hand-maiden with dire meaning. When next Sarah appeared the bow had vanished.

She watched, from beneath raised brows, Kate Kearney tumbling over her own head in pursuit of the ribbon tied about her neck, but she did not say anything. After breakfast a box came by parcel's post addressed to Nell. It was a large box, and it was filled with shamrock. Miss Kezia studied it amiably.

"I suppose it is a pretty little weed," she said with affability.

She went farther. She asked Sheila Pat for information anent St. Patrick.

Unfortunately Sheila Pat started with the little item of his having swum across the Shannon with his head in his mouth. Miss Kezia remonstrated. She pointed out the impossibility of his performing such a feat.

Sheila Pat waxed indignant. She explained scornfully that anything was possible to St. Patrick, and that, moreover, his being in Ireland at the time had a great deal to do with his wonderful cleverness.

Miss Kezia argued that it would have been nothing more or less than a miracle.

Sheila Pat retorted, "And why not?" Miss Kezia was shocked. A long and hot discussion followed, of which the Atom had the last word. She said:—

"Why, you can't know any*thing! You don't even know what Ireland's *like! You're just a hignoramus!"

Miss Kezia was angry. She was also genuinely worried. It was not the first time that her young relatives by marriage had worried her active conscience from a religious point of view. Their stories of fairies and legends and miracles seemed, to her stern narrowness, profane. In the course of her argument with Sheila Pat, the Atom had observed that she thought it must be very nice for God to have St. Patrick for a companion. The remark had left Miss Kezia gasping.

Left alone with the rude epithet of hignoramus hovering scornfully in the air, Miss Kezia sought to arrange the chaos in her mind. She was still forming sound arguments to be used with effect on a future occasion, when she heard the O'Briens going out. She went to the window and received several further shocks. In the first place Denis was with the others, when he should have been at the bank. In the second, third, and fourth places, their costumes were most unseemly. To Miss Kezia they appeared to be composed chiefly of shamrock and green ribbon. In the fifth place Kate Kearney, all unchidden, was dividing her energies in a vain attempt to rid herself of her bow, between the mud heap at the side of the road and Miss Kezia's spotless door-steps.

Miss Kezia flung open the window, and called out:—

"Ridiculous! I won't have it! Denis, why aren't you at the bank? My steps!"

Denis waved an airy farewell with his shillelagh.

"Bank?" His voice was amazed. "It's a holiday, of course! Told them I shouldn't be there!"

"You are not to—"

Miss Kezia's voice died away. She recognised the uselessness of calling injunctions after fast-disappearing and obviously obstinate backs.

She returned to her dusting. Her amiability had been sorely tried; it was little more than a memory now. She approached the window to dust a chair, and became aware of the fact that her house was an object of interest and mirth to passers-by. She sighed angrily. She had a genuine wish to make allowances. She understood dimly that the day meant a great deal to them. She could not discover from the windows the cause of the interest her house seemed to possess for the passers-by. She donned her bonnet and coat and went out. From the pavement she discovered only too quickly the cause of that interest and mirth. Her respectable house wore a festive, even a rakish, air. The dingy bricks seemed to shrink back apologetically beneath their gay adornments. Green—green—green—Miss Kezia took a violent dislike to the colour that day which never left her. The Irish flag held a prominent position; green bunting was festooned across from window to window; a basket of shamrock was slung by green ribbons from a water-pipe; there were garlands and harps. From one window there hung a long, limp object, professedly a dead serpent. Miss Kezia's eyesight was good; it was better than her imagination. She saw at once that a thing composed of some rolled-up strips of carpet that were her property hung from a window. But she did not see that the thing was a serpent. The realistic touches given by Nell's brush were, to her, merely so many insults added to the injury.

The O'Briens did not come home to lunch. Miss Kezia lunched alone. She also said to Sarah, "You are not to keep anything hot, Sarah!"

Sarah dragged the beef from the oven in such a temper that it fell into the fender.

Soon after lunch Miss Kezia went out. She glanced from the gate with approval at the decorous, unadorned bricks of her house. When she returned a few hours later, she glanced again at it approvingly. But as she put her key into the lock of the door, the more amiable expression of her countenance faded, and a look of disapproving horror took its place. She entered the hall and was greeted with several disconcerting things. Her ears were offended by the loud singing of many voices, accompanied by a concertina and combs. Her nose was offended with the unmistakable scent of tobacco. Her eyes—well, her eyes were offended with the smoke and with many signs of untidiness, of riot, and of fun.

Miss Kezia went upstairs. As she reached the door of the Stronghold the voices and music were in full swing:—

"'You may take the Shamrock from your hat and cast it on the sod,

But, never fear, 'twill take root there, tho' under foot 'tis trod.

When laws can stop the blades of grass from growing as they grow,

And when the leaves in summer time their verdure dare not show,

Then I will change the colour I wear in my caubeen;

But till that day, please God, I'll stick to wearin' of the green.'"

Miss Kezia stood, unseen, unheard, within the door of the Stronghold, and gazed.

Round the table sat several men, women, and children. On the table were the remains of a feast. Miss Kezia caught sight of a beef bone and gasped; she saw poultry bones, remains of pies, tarts, and cakes. The windows were flung wide, but the atmosphere of the room, thick with smoke, offended her nostrils.

A pair of bare little legs gave a sudden spasmodic leap to a sheltering lap, and a shrill little voice exclaimed:—

"Lady!"

There was a sudden lull. Denis turned to his aunt.

"Hulloa, Aunt Kezia! These are a few friends we came across to-day."

"In—deed!" said Miss Kezia.

An old woman was heard to exclaim with deep sentiment:

"Sure 'tis his honour's a rale gintleman entirely!"

Miss Kezia, looking back afterwards, on the minutes that followed, marvelled angrily at her strange and quite unsuitable behaviour. She concluded, and rightly, that she was dazed with bewilderment at the welcome she received. To her cold and austere nature it was inexplicable. She found herself surrounded, called by terms of endearment, her hands held and shaken, compliments paid to herself and her nation. One old woman, half weeping over the joy that had been hers that day, actually kissed her hand. She was not a particularly clean old woman, and Miss Kezia wished that she wouldn't do it. But she did not draw her hand roughly away. "Ten years," wailed the old woman, "have I stood the whole day through beside me barrow, and me not able to put me foot to the ground with the rheumatics!"

Miss Kezia felt a passing inclination to point out that the two facts were not compatible. Oh, these people were awful! And one had a monkey, a horrible little monkey, sitting on his shoulder! And they were dirty!

"Sure 'tis herself's the kind lady, givin' the poor Irish immigrants the welcome!"

Welcome!

Miss Kezia began to beat an ignominious retreat. She had to confess herself unequal to the occasion. Her inclination set strongly toward turning these undesirable guests from her house. But their gratitude was so exuberant; they were so sure of her welcome, so childishly hilarious.

"'Tis herself's giving us the grand time entirely!"

"Won't ye be sittin' down wid us, me dear?" The old woman who had kissed her hand dragged a chair forward invitingly.

"'Tisn't much we've left ye," she pursued, "but ye'll be havin' a piece of cheese now?"

Miss Kezia heard, amazedly, her own voice making excuses, as she edged back into the doorway. A grimy little hand was thrust up in front of her; a beguiling little voice suggestively besought God to bless her.

Miss Kezia looked down into a smutty imp's face with eyes as blue and innocent as Heaven.

"God bless ye, lady! God bless ye, lady!"

Slowly Miss Kezia opened her purse, slowly she took from it a halfpenny, and dropped it into the little hand.

"God send ye a good husband, lady!" rang out jubilantly. "God guard every shtep of your way!"

Miss Kezia found herself surrounded suddenly by bare legs, blue eyes, outstretched hands, entreating voices.

"God bless ye, lady! God bless ye, lady!"

There were five halfpennies and two farthings in her purse. She dispensed them automatically.

"God send ye a good husband! God send ye a good husband!"

Even the smallest imp, a scrap of a thing, about a foot and a half high, shrilly called on Heaven to provide her with a suitable partner.

Miss Kezia looked uncomfortable. She shut her purse with a snap and retreated on to the landing. But they followed her, all talking at once. Her hands were taken again. Disconcerting questions as to her family, her parents, were asked. The old woman who had stood beside her barrow for ten years without once putting her foot to the ground broke out wailingly into an account of her trials, her sorrows, and pains. A black-bearded man gave her a picturesque presentment of his life as a father of eight children. His was the shoulder on which the objectionable monkey sat. He came close, emphasising, with dramatic gestures, his story. The monkey stretched out a thin little arm towards Miss Kezia's bonnet. Miss Kezia backed precipitately. Why did her bonnet possess a fascination for monkeys, she wondered shudderingly. She hated monkeys.

"Sure, thin, isn't he welcoming one of his own people?" the man with the black beard observed.

Miss Kezia thought the remark impertinent, and concluded that it was intended to be funny. It wasn't.

It gave her disapproval the necessary fillip, and she managed to beat a retreat. Once in her bedroom, she shut the door, and, with a hurried air not usual to her, turned the key in the lock.

Miss Kezia possessed an uncompromising conscience. She never allowed it to veil or excuse her motives. Yet, as she stood untying the strings of the bonnet that possessed such a weird attraction for the monkey tribe, she said to herself that she really must turn out and tidy a certain drawer at once. To an outsider the drawer would have seemed tidy enough, but Miss Kezia, sitting before it, the door still locked, methodically sorted out and refolded every article it contained. As she was refolding, for the third time, a certain scarf that was the last article to be tidied, the noise that had been surging, high and low, exuberant and sad, in her ears, as a never ceasing accompaniment to her tidying, suddenly swelled into sharper sounds, and she understood that the door of the Stronghold had been opened. She sat, rigid, a queer dread on her face. The dread gave place presently to absolute astonishment at the noise they managed to make. The rapid talk, the laughter, the jokes, bewildered her. The great affection that evidently existed between them and her young relatives surprised her.

"Old tenants," she surmised. "How very fond they are of their landlord's children!"

She experienced a distinct feeling of gratitude towards the Albert Hall, and the Irish concert that was to be held there that evening, and for which her relatives had taken tickets.

For a quarter of an hour by Miss Kezia's watch, the "tenants" bade their landlord's children good-bye. Three times the door was shut, three times there came bangs and thumps on it, and it was re-opened. And each time all the noise and talk began again.

Later on Miss Kezia ventured forth. On meeting the O'Briens, she observed with forbearance that she trusted they would make things tidy now that their father's tenants had gone. She went on to remark that it was strange so many of them should be in London. They were a good deal amused. They pointed out airily that they were no tenants of their father's; that they had never seen them till that day; that they had just come across them. It was the last shock poor Miss Kezia received on that 17th of March. She was very angry, and very genuinely bewildered. She watched them go off to their concert with a sense of relief. She felt a newly developed fondness for the Albert Hall.

CHAPTER XXIX

The day after St. Patrick's day was a bad one for them. It was a beautiful day, bright and cold; but, in the reactionary mood that had gripped them all in a great gloom, the very brightness was a thing to rail at.

At the breakfast-table Miss Kezia gazed at them astonished. She was not a keen observer, but even she, with the memory of yesterday in her mind, marvelled at the sudden depression.

Denis, in the hall, observed gloomily:—

"Wish I'd get run over, or save a millionnaire's life. Either'd make a break."

"Millionnaires only get their lives saved in books," Nell rejoined bitterly.

He kicked the hat-stand angrily.

"Look here, Nell, I can't go to that beastly bank to-day. I'm sick of it! I'll be committing suicide, or murder, or something, if I do!"

A quick little sob caught suddenly at her throat.

"Oh, Denis!" she whispered. "Oh, Denis!"

He smoothed out a dent he had made in his hat. He looked up at her, a humorous smile twisting his mouth.

"Anyhow, I'll be a success as an author soon," he said. "Didn't I say all this beastly bank business was copy? Well, my books'll be pretty morbid and sordid, won't they?"

She felt blindly for his coat; it danced before her eyes in a mist. He began to laugh.

"I say, old fumble-fist, wouldn't old Pom-Pom be rich while I was murdering him? I can see him—'Excuse me, Mr. O'Brien, but you really are going to work in an unnecessarily rough manner.'" He dived an arm into the coat she held out for him. "Nell—think I shall ever want to bring in a realistic murder into a book? If so, now's the time to get it."

"You're late. Don't dawdle."

"Bet I'd get to the corner before you even if I gave you the steps in!"

"Not you!"

She flung open the door, jumped the long flight of steps, and vanished. She came back laughing, flushed, and vanquished, into the disapproving arms of Miss Kezia.

She listened to the lecture that followed in a passion of dreary revolt. When it was finished she observed tragically, "Next time I'll put on a veil!"

She went upstairs to Molly and French translation. She set Sheila Pat a sum to work out. Sheila Pat sat and gazed awhile at the figures, then she slid down from her chair.

"I won't do it, Nell!" she said.

She stood, a small figure at bay; a little quiver passed through her.

"Very well, asthore," Nell said gently.

The Atom went to the window and looked out. She came back to the table.

"Give me something to do, please, Nell."

Molly began, "Why, you just said—"

"I'm not sayin' it now, Molly O'Brien!"

"Duckie," Nell said, "will you write me a letter? I just feel I'd like a letter."

Sheila Pat got paper and ink and began:—

"My dear Nell—"

She wrote for a few minutes, then she said:—.

"May I say I've no time to write any more now, Nell? I don't want to write any more."

She went down into the garden and quarrelled violently with Stewart over the rival merits of St. George and St. Patrick. In the very heart of the argument she slipped and grazed her nose on the wall. But she retrieved her position without loss of time or dignity, and went on with the argument.

Nell met her later wandering aimlessly up and down the stairs, in and out the rooms.

"Please don't touch me!" she said strenuously as Nell advanced, and she ran away down to the kitchen. At luncheon she hardly ate anything; she fidgeted, was rude to Miss Kezia.

Afterward she refused to go for a walk with the others. She said with forlorn dignity:—

"I am tired of walkin' between houses that squeeze you to death, thank you."

To omnibuses she made much the same objection. Nell, in pity, left her alone.

Later on Nell went out to buy a tube of rose-madder. She was painting desperately, in a sudden wild accession of determination to get back to Kilbrannan somehow. When she came back she found Molly deep in a book in the Stronghold.

"Where's the Atom?"

"Somewhere about."

Nell searched.

"She isn't."

"Oh, she's gone, then. I didn't know she'd gone yet. The maid came from next door to ask her to go to tea with Stewart."

"I'm glad."

A little before six Miss Kezia came into the Stronghold. Denis whisked Jim behind him, and faced her serenely.

"Molly, I wish to know if it is to you I am indebted for—these?"

She held out a pair of large, flat, square-toed shoes, and pointed majestically to two frivolous-looking little bows on their toes.

Molly grew scarlet.

"Y-yes, Aunt Kezia! I—I—"

"I thought so. I should like to know why my property is never to be safe from you?"

"I—I saw—I saw there had been bows—and I—I made fresh ones—"

"Yes. I picked the bows off myself. I object to them." She stared at Molly with a puzzled frown. "You are a very peculiar girl," she said, and left the room.

"I took hours sewing them on!" wailed the discomfited Molly to an unsympathetic and much-amused audience.

"I believe our dear aunt thinks you're a bit wanting," declared Denis, tapping his brow.

Miss Kezia put her head round the door again

"Where is Sheila?"

"She hasn't come back yet."

"Come back? From where?"

"Next door," said Nell.

"What has she gone there for? I object to her running in and out."

"She went to tea."

"No. I have come from there only half an hour ago."

"Are you sure?" Nell looked bewildered.

"Stewart had tea with us. She was not there."

Nell looked at Molly; her eyes had widened suddenly,

"Molly!"—her voice was quite sharp—"you said she had gone—"

"I thought she had. A maid came and asked her—"

Denis bounded down the stairs.

"Sarah!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Do you know anything about a maid coming from next door to ask Miss Sheila to go to tea?"

"Yes, sir, but she said, 'No, thank you, she didn't wish to go.'"

"Have you seen her go out, Sarah?"

"No, sir. She's never out, and it pouring and that bitter cold and windy!"

In another minute he had on his coat, and had gone off to the milkman's to see if she were there. The others waited. Molly tried guiltily to comfort Nell, and to excuse herself.

"Oh, do be quiet!" Nell interrupted her. "Can't you at least do that?"

Denis returned with no news of her.

"She may have gone to Mr. Yovil's or to Sarah's home—"

"Or Ted Lancaster's—Denis," Nell's voice was desperate, "she's been gone nearly three hours! I can't stay here. I'll go to Sarah's, while you go—"

"You will not! You cannot go out alone! It is dark and raining," Miss Kezia interrupted.

Nell gave a queer little laugh.

"I'm going," she said.

"Nell," Denis interposed, "I'll get you a cab. You go to Mr. Yovil's—I'll go off to Lancaster's. Sarah will go home." His tone was quietly authoritative.

Miss Kezia found herself put aside and everyone obeying him implicitly. In reality she was very uneasy and anxious herself, but she hid it beneath a cold and disapproving manner.

Nell returned a few minutes after he did. She shook her head.

"He was out. She hasn't been there."

"There's Sarah yet. She isn't back."

"Must we wait, Denis?"

"No. I'm off to the police station. If she should bring her back, I can go and cancel orders."

His hand was on the door latch. "Here's Sarah!" he said.

Sarah hurried in, wet, breathless.

"No, missansir—oh, and them crool moters—and she such a baby for all her grown ways!"

The wind and the rain beat in angrily. Denis closed the door, and turned to speak to Nell. Something drove up and stopped outside. He flung open the door. In the light of the lamp they could discern a small figure standing by a horse's head. The horse was in a four-wheeled cab, the driver was getting down from his box. The next instant Sheila Pat was met at the gate and marshalled up the steps. Into the hall she came, a small, weary figure, drenched through, her face shining white in the lamplight.

They closed round her; Nell's arms squeezed her desperately; there was a babel of questions, reprimands, relief.

"What a rikkledous fuss!" were the first words the Atom spoke, and a strong odor of peppermint began to pervade the hall.

"Where have you been?" demanded Miss Kezia for the third time.

"Out," laconically.

Nell cried: "Oh, Sheila Pat, you're soaked through! Come and get dry things on!"

"Directly her clothes have been changed I wish to hear an account of what she has been doing," said Miss Kezia.

Denis picked her up into his arms and held her tight. "You're eating peppermint, you vulgar little ragamuffin!"

"He gave it me—he says it keeps out the cold wonderful. He used to take to drink to keep himself warm, but ever since his little baby was borned, a year ago, he sucks peppermint instead!" The excited little voice vanished up the stairs.

"With whom have you been consorting, Sheila?" Miss Kezia's dire tones followed her.

"I haven't been con—con—doin' that at all!" was the indignant response.

Denis translated into the wet ear nearest to him:—

"Who was 'he,' duckums?"

"Mr. Willie Riley," in a dignified voice. "And I shared his tea!" triumphantly.

"Hurry up, Denis!" Nell's face was worried, anxious. "I've her dry things all ready. But I think she ought to go to bed—"

"I won't! Sure, Nell O'Brien, I'm not a baby to go to bed at seven o'clock!"

Nell, rubbing her down, found she was shivering and trembling all through her slim little body. She huddled her into warm, dry clothes, rubbed her toes, hugged her.

"Asthore, asthore, you've given us all such a bad time!"

"But, Nell, I'm really not a baby! I don't see why you make such a fuss."

"You're absurd, Atom! We didn't know what might be happening to you. We don't know now what was happening. You must tell us—"

"I went out, and—and I got lost, Nell."

"But where did you go? And why?"

"Oh, we were all so frightened!" interposed Molly. "And I felt so awful, because I told Nell you were next door. I never dreamed you'd said you wouldn't go, and I heard the maid say it to Sarah, and oh, Sarah cried and said motor cars killed all the children, and I do think you're awfully naughty—" She stopped, out of breath.

"So do I." Nell's arms were round her again; she gave her a little shake. "I'm dreadfully angry with you, sweet, and you shall have some nice hot bread and milk presently."

"I don't want it, Nell! I shared Mr. Riley's tea."

"Tell me why you went out, Atom," she coaxed.

The little body stiffened.

"A person doesn't—always—want to—to tell things," she said, a note of desperation in her voice. "I'll tell you all about Mr. Riley," eagerly.

Denis came in. "I say, Aunt Kezia's waiting. Come and confess, Atom!"

"I won't."

"You've got to be a man. Come along."

He had touched the right note. Downstairs marched the Atom and into the dining room. Not pale was she now. Two vivid spots of colour glowed in her cheeks; her eyes shone. She sat her down on a chair and began:—

"I wished to go out all by my alone, so I put on my things and I creeped down the stairs and out of the door—"

"Most wrong! Most naughty!" interpolated Miss Kezia, but the Atom went on unheeding.

"Sure I'll not be tellin' you anythin' I don't wish to, so it's no use askin' undesirable questions about—" a halt, a momentary quaver, "about things. This London is just houses and houses and houses and streets like—" pause for an insulting metaphor, "like twin maggots! And I got lost." She stopped abruptly.

"It is very naughty and selfish to cause so much trouble to others while you enjoy yourself roaming the streets!" said Miss Kezia.

A curious expression came into the Atom's small face—a bitter little expression that made it look oddly old for a moment.

"Go on, asthore," Nell put in. "What did you do when you were lost?"

"I walked and walked. I wouldn't ask a policeman the way, because Sarah's young man says they're a bad lot and you can't trust them. And then," her face kindled, "I came upon a cab-stand, and there was one poor horse with his nose-bag slipped down,—the strap had come loose, and he couldn't get his poor nose in at all,—and I ran across and I kissed his nose—it had a white flame—he was a bay with a hog mane—and I tried to get his bag up, but, oh, 'tis heavy they are! I tried and tried, and I gave him a handful of oats to go on with, and then Willie Riley came along—" She broke off. "Oh, Nell," she said, in a breathless little aside, "all day long I'd been hearing all these hidjous London people's voices, all shoutin'—and Willie Riley came along, and oh, he called out, 'Sure and what's wrong at all?' Oh, but 'twas grand! All day I hadn't heard it. 'Sure and what's wrong at all?' just like that."

"The horse might have bitten you. It was a most foolish and foolhardy thing to do," reprimanded Miss Kezia.

Sheila Pat stared at her in a funny little considering way, then pursued:—

"He soon put it right, and then we had a talk. Nell, he comes from Cork! And he was tellin' me all about his home—"

"Get on with what you did!" put in Miss Kezia.

"I'm tellin' you," obstinately, "I talked with him. And then he drove me here." With a sudden abrupt movement she slipped from the chair. "I'll go to bed now."

There were great dark rings round her eyes; Nell saw her shiver.

"Come on, then, Atom," Denis picked her up again. "I'll carry you up."

The small arms went with sudden desperate clinging round his neck; Sheila Pat pressed her cheek hard into his.

"She must be punished," said Miss Kezia. "She has been wandering about alone for more than three hours."

"We'll see about that to-morrow," Denis said.

Nell went towards the kitchen.

"Where are you going, Eileen?"

"To make her some hot bread and milk."

"It is perfectly absurd the way you none seem to think she should be punished—"

"I shall make her promise never to go out alone again."

"She shared that cabman's tea," grimly; "that is sufficient. I will not have her coddled and fussed over as if she has done something clever."

"She must have the bread and milk. She is tired and shivering." Nell's eyes looked dark, her head was back. For a moment Miss Kezia hesitated whether she should enforce her words. She glanced keenly at Nell's face.

"If it is to stave off a cold, I will say no more," she said, and turned away.

When Nell took the bread and milk up, she found Sheila Pat on Denis's knee, flushed, heavy-eyed, half asleep.

"I don't want it, Nell! Make her take it away, Denis!" Her tone was peevish.

"Not I. I want you to eat it. Come, try, old girl."

But the Atom turned her head away, and buried it deeper in his chest.

"I don't want it! I don't want it!"

"But you've got to try and eat it, Sheila Pat! Come, don't be a baby."

She sat up listlessly.

"I'll feed you. We'll pretend you are a baby, shall we?"

Halfway through it her heavy lids drooped, her weary little head fell back against his shoulder. Nell took the basin away.

"I'll get her to bed as quickly as I can," she whispered.

"Molly, run and fetch her nightie—to warm."

But the Atom clung wearily to Denis.

"I don't want to go to bed. Denis, need I go to bed?"

"Must, old lady."

"May I go in my clothes, then? I don't want to get undressed."

"You'll be so much more cosey, dear," coaxed Nell. "It won't take a minute."

Denis put her down. She stood gazing into the fire, her sleepy eyes closing now and then.

"Oh, Nell—why does a person have such a lot of clothes?" as her arms were dragged out of various garments.

"Oh—leave my chimmy on—"

"Need I have my stockin's off?"

In her blue flannel nightgown she knelt in front of a chair and said her prayers. She roused over them.

"I've got a new bit to-night," she said, and gave a curious little shudder. "I'm goin' to pray it to Jesus as well as God."

When she had finished Nell carried her into their bedroom, wrapped in a warmed blanket.

"Good night, Nell." Sheila Pat's arms clung tight.

Three times Nell peeped in that evening, and found her tossing restlessly, wide-eyed.

When she came to bed, Sheila Pat was still awake. She sat up.

"Nell, I've been very inceitful!"

"You're going to tell me why you went out?"

"Yes."

Nell sat down on the bed and took her, blankets and all, into her lap.

"Now, sweetheart."

But the Atom was silent. She wriggled restlessly.

"I feel—oh, someone's playin' tunes in my head, Nell! I—won't I ever be sleepy again? My legs hurt, Nell. Is it all those steps?"

"What steps, dear?"

"The monnyment. Are you very s'prised? I went up the monnyment—to—Nell, do you think I've got a cold comin'? My nose feels funny."

"I'm afraid you have. Go on, pet."

"The boy told me—I asked him—he had blue eyes and red cheeks and—and I thought he might be nice like an Irish boy, and—and—I—I felt," with sudden passion, "I would just die if I didn't see it—just one tiny bit! And he said I could—from the top of the monnyment—he said, 'Oh, yes, you can see Ireland right enough from there, you can see all the world,' but—I—couldn't—"

Nell's arms tightened about her.

"He was a wicked boy! He told a lie. I mustn't say 'lie,' but I will. I could only see—dirty—smoke—and houses—"

"How did you find your way there?"

"I don't know. It was very differcult, and I kept goin' wrong, but I asked people. And one woman gave me an apple off her barrow. It was very kind of her. But there was only smoke and houses—"

A sudden convulsive sob shook her from head to foot.

"I—I ran up a lot of the steps—" her fingers dug into Nell's arm—"and it was three pennies—and the man told me there are three hundred and forty-five steps—it was a long way—and," a little terrified shudder shook her, "there's a nasty cage—he said it's because people used to throw theirselves over to—because they wanted to kill theirselves, Nell! I—I didn't know people ever wanted to kill theirselves, did you?"

The shrinking terror in her eyes hurt Nell horribly.

"Don't, Atom—don't! Dear, it's only poor people who—who are mad—who don't know what they are doing. If they knew, they wouldn't do it."

The terror lightened a little. She lay quiet a little while in Nell's arms.

Nell hoped she was falling asleep, but presently the whole small form was shaken by another desperate sob.

"It was only smoke—-and houses—" came a desolate little murmur of utter weariness.

"Try to go to sleep, darling—do try."

"I'm not cryin', Nell! Only—I—you see shiverin' and a cold is rather like cryin', isn't it?"

"Very much, but you'll be better to-morrow. You must get better quickly, because suppose our first letters from Australia were to come with you sick! And they may come any day now, sweet. And there mustn't be anyone sick here! Because how can we celebrate the occasion properly then? If the letters say that mother is quite, quite strong again—and they will, darling, I know they will!—well, what shall we do then?"

She talked on softly, gently, and after a while the Atom slept. Nell sat for some time with her on her lap, frightened to move lest she wake her, but at last she laid her gently in her bed, and the Atom still slept on.

But the next morning Nell was wakened suddenly at six o'clock. She sat up. The Atom was striving to pour some water from the bottle to the glass, and it was the two clinking together that had waked Nell. The bottle shook in the Atom's hands; Nell saw that she was shaking all over.

She slipped to the floor.

"Go back to bed, asthore, I'll give you some water."

"I—I'm so th-thirsty, Nell, and I c-can't keep still—I'm r-rather like Mrs. J-Jelly!" with a shivery little smile.

"You're frozen. Now, drink it quickly, and let me tuck you in again."

"I'd sooner get up, Nell."

"Not yet, Sheila Pat."

"My bed's so c-cold, Nell. I don't like my bed."

"Come into mine, dear."

She snuggled into Nell, shivering and shaking.

"Will I make you very cold?"

"Oh, no, asthore. Now go to sleep."

After a while Nell dozed. She woke suddenly to find Sheila Pat lying beside her with all the bedclothes off.

"I'm so hot, Nell! I just burn—I b'lieve I'll scorch soon."

"You've caught a bad cold, Sheila Pat. You'll have to stay in bed."

"I won't! I want to go out and get cool. I'll go and have my cold bath now."

But very soon she was shivering again.

Miss Kezia sent for Dr. Everton. Sheila Pat was pronounced an invalid, the fire was lit, and the restless little Atom condemned to bed.

Dr. Everton looked grave; he murmured the dread words—rheumatic fever—but hoped it might be merely a heavy, influenza cold. He told them to be very careful.

It seemed a long, long day. Sheila Pat, realising she was to be an invalid, used all her sturdy powers to be a brave one. She was very hot and feverish; her poor little head ached, and she ached all over her body.

"Nell," she said once, "I can't be very little, after all, because there's such a heap of room for the aches! I feel most as big as the giant Mahon MacMahon. Nell, I wonder if he ever caught cold?"

But there was something that worried the Atom and tormented her far more than the worst of the aches did, and that was a bewildering, disconcerting longing to cry that had assailed her. Over and over again the tears got as far as her eyes, and had to be hidden away in the pillow. Once one ran down her cheek, and they caught her breath in her throat and made it ache with a worse ache than that in her legs. She lay tossing and turning, her brilliant eyes full of a desperation that hurt the others to see. Every other minute she was sitting up, her pig-tail sticking out, breathing hard.

"Mayn't I get up, just for a minute? May I just put my legs over the edge, then? Nell, I—I'm just tired of bein' in bed!" The poor little voice shook despairingly.

"Atom, darling!"

"I will be good, Nell." Down she lay again. "Am I a very tiresome invalid?"

"You're a jewel, sweetheart, only you must try to lie quiet."

"Yes, Nell."

Pause.

"When will Denis come, Nell?"

"Directly he gets home from the bank."

"Will it be very long now?"

"No, dear, not very."

"How long, Nell?"

"An hour and a half," unwillingly.

Sheila Pat hid weak tears in the pillow.

"Nell."

"Yes, asthore?"

"P'raps those people who throwed theirselves off the monnyment thought they could fly. Do you think they did, Nell?"

"Very likely. Try not to think about them, Atom."

"I—I can't help it, Nell. Do you think God would make the ground soft so's it wouldn't hurt very much?"

"Yes, dear."

"Up again?"

"I—I'm 'fraid I'll burn all up, Nell!"

She took the hot little hands into hers. Sheila Pat rested her head wearily against her arm.

"Is Denis comin' now, Nell?"

"In an hour, now, sweetheart."

"I'm so thirsty, Nell."

Nell fetched the toast water.

"I don't want that! I want real water. Mayn't I have just one drink?"

"Try this, dear. You mustn't have any more plain water."

She drank a little.

"Have you ever been up three hundred and forty-five steps, Nell? It does make your legs ache, but I wouldn't have minded that—if— There was only smoke and houses, Nell—"

She dropped back on to her pillow and buried her head in it.

"Some day you'll see it,"—Nell's voice shook a little—"see the greenness of it—the—"

"I shouldn't wonder if I'm dead before then," the Atom told her pillow with heartsick pessimism.

"Oh, Sheila Pat! That's not like you. You've had colds before, and been so brave!"

"They were different colds." The pillow was dented deep as she burrowed her head feverishly in her puzzlement. "I feel quite diffrent. I think I've got a cold inside as well as outside this time, Nell."

Nell looked at the dark little head in the pillow, and her eyes filled with tears.

Sheila Pat started kicking.

"My legs ache so, Nell! I can't keep them still."

"Let me rub them."

"Where's Molly?"

"I sent her away to keep you quiet. Do you want her?"

She shook her head.

"Isn't Denis comin' yet?"

"Very soon now, dear. Does rubbing make them a little better?"

"Yes, thank you, but I—I'm so hot, Nell! I feel as if it's never rained for years and years! Please may I have my Pearl?"

Nell fetched him. He squeaked angrily and protestingly.

"I don't want him, thank you. S'pose I gave him my cold? Will you put him back in his cage, please?"

Nell took him away, came back, and tucked her in afresh.

"Now try to sleep, sweetheart."

"I don't b'lieve I'll ever go to sleep again. I feel most as if they've burnt eye-holes all round my head."

She heard him coming. She knelt upon the bed quivering and shaking with sick eagerness.

"Well, poor little invalid!" His big arms went round her. "Wasn't it a little goose to go and catch cold? And the people worrying over you! Pennington sent his compliments, and Lancaster his love. Has she been a good Atom, Nell?"

"I—I'm very worryin'. I'm not very brave," she confided to his shoulder.

"Yes, she is, but she can't go to sleep."

"Denis, might I get up—just for one minute?"

"On to my knee. Come along. Plenty of blankets."

"I do b'lieve I'll scorch you." Eagerly she snuggled into his arms.

"When I smell burning, I'll put you back into your bed. Head ache, old girl?"

"Yes. I s'pose it couldn't grow any bigger in one could it? It feels so big and heavy."

"That's because it's full of all the sleep you ought to have had."

When he was going, she stopped him:—

"Denis, there aren't many people who—who have throwed theirselves off the monnyment, are there?"

"Bless you, no! Only one or two poor lunatics who didn't know what they were doing!"

"Perhaps it wouldn't hurt a lunytic quite so much?"

"Not it! You see, the poor things wouldn't be feeling the same as ordinary people—they'd all be dulled and heavy. Don't think of them, there's a good old Atom!"

"Denis, will you come back before you go to the bank again?"

"Why, yes, asthore! I won't be long over lunch."

The long, weary day dragged slowly on. Sheila Pat set all her hardy will to work, and succeeded in silencing her tongue. But Nell, looking at the restless little head tossing, turning, burrowing into the pillows; at the great heavy, weary eyes; wished her will were not so strong. She was sure it would be better for the Atom to give way and cry her cry out. The puzzled look that she met again and again in her eyes, the seeking, despairing expression, wrung her heart. She knew that the poor Atom could not understand; that she was at war with Providence in a vague, bewildered way, and that she was heartsick for her country.

Nell refused to leave her; but at last, in the afternoon, Miss Kezia, with strong common sense, put matters before her, and Nell went for a little walk with Molly. Miss Kezia betook herself and her knitting to the Atom's room. The Atom was lying with all the bedclothes off and trailing on the floor. Miss Kezia put them on again in silence. Sudden wicked feverish battle leapt to the Atom's eyes. Directly Miss Kezia had sat down she kicked them off again. Miss Kezia rose and rearranged them. When this had taken place four times, Sheila Pat lay exhausted and breathing hard, but in her eyes there still lurked battle.

"Please will you fetch my Pearl?" She watched triumphantly. "If you don't, I'll go and fetch him myself."

Miss Kezia hesitated.

"I will!" the Atom said firmly.

"I'll bring him up in his cage." Miss Kezia rose.

The triumph fell away from the flushed, restless face.

"I don't want him, thank you. I'm afraid of givin' him my cold."

"Very well," patiently.

Sheila Pat watched her a minute.

"May I have some toast water, please?"

Pause.

"I've dropped my handkerchief out of bed, Aunt Kezia."

Pause.

"Please will you readrange my pillow?"

Pause.

"May I have some more water, please, Aunt Kezia?"

Then Sheila Pat chuckled hysterically at the idea of her being able to make her aunt trot about just as she wished. But the amusement palled; listless curiosity made her ask, "Why don't you tell me to be quiet, Aunt Kezia?"

Miss Kezia looked at her over her knitting.

"You are feverish, and consequently restless. I conclude you would be as quiet as you could."

"No, I wasn't! I was doin' it to worry you."

Miss Kezia went on with her knitting.

"Are you cross, Aunt Kezia?"

"No, my dear, but I should be very glad if you could sleep a little."

"I'll try," said Sheila Pat, touched. She screwed her hot eyelids up with earnest purpose.

"Aunt Kezia, did you know some people want to kill theirselves?"

Miss Kezia looked across at the small face peering at her, excited, shrinking.

"Only a very few. It's not a nice subject for you to think about, Sheila."

"They threw theirselves down off the monnyment—right down—"

"Not now. There is a—"

"I know. It's only poor people who are mad, isn't it?"

Miss Kezia hesitated.

Sheila Pat was sitting up; her eyes were terrified, wretched.

"Yes, my dear; they don't know what they are doing," Miss Kezia said gently. "Lie down."

The room began to grow dim. Miss Kezia knitted on in the dusk, hoping the Atom would fall asleep. Suddenly her voice, shrill, impish, rang out:—

"'The ould dame sat in a stiff'-backed chair,

Click-clack, click-clack, click-clack, click!

Sure she knitted of stockin's sixteen pair

Click-clack, click!

Her face was long and her temper short

Piff-pouff, piff-pouff, piff-pouff, piff!

Sure she worked in bad words more than she ought

Piff-pouff, piff!'"

A chuckle.

"Are you cross, Aunt Kezia?"

"No."

"Why aren't you? Don't you think I asserve a cold?"

"You were naughty and foolish, and you are paying for it, but—" after a glance at the figure sitting up in the dusk, "I am sorry for you."

"I don't want you to be sorry for me!"

Sheila Pat flung herself back.

"'Her mouth was wide and her tongue was sharp'—

Oh, go away! Go away! Quick—"

Miss Kezia, to her own amazement, found herself obeying the strenuous voice, the note of real agony. As she hesitated outside the door she heard a sudden storm of sobs—a breathless, wild weeping, a smothered wail of woe. And she walked softly away, her face flushed, as if she had been guilty of some meanness. She stood inside her room awhile, then went back. She paused outside the door; all was silent. She turned the handle clumsily and went in. Sheila Pat lay in her bed, quiet and still; but Miss Kezia knew she was not asleep.

"I've fetched my red wool for the border," she said, and she told the falsehood—a thing abhorred of her rigid conscientiousness—with a ringing cheerfulness.

Nell came in presently with a bowl of bread and milk. The Atom sat up listlessly.

"Aunt Kezia has been very patient," she said gravely. "Nell, please need I have any?" She leant her head against Nell's arm, and her fingers squeezed it lovingly.

"Just a little, sweet. Has she slept at all, Aunt Kezia?

"No. Perhaps she will after her bread and milk."

But she didn't. And as the evening wore on her temperature rose; her little burning face grew more desperate. She began to talk, feverishly, excitedly. Dr. Everton called again. He gave a few directions, and urged them to keep her mind as quiet as possible.

"Her temperature is very high. She hardly knows what she is saying. I believe she has something on her mind. I will call early to-morrow morning. No talk, please; she must be kept quiet."

"Nell, people never want to kill theirselves in Ireland, do they? There's not a bad old monnyment there. It had three hundred million steps. The man said so. It was very high, you see, and I was glad, because I thought I'd be able to see over all the roofs, and I thought I'd see the sea and a blue mist and Ireland shinin' out—all green—oh, I want to go home, Nell! I want to go home!" She broke out into pitiful crying, too bad now to fight any longer.

"You shall soon—you shall soon—" Nell's arms were round her; her voice choked.

"I want to go now! S'pose I'm dead before mother and dad come back?—All green—and cool—I'm all scorchin', but I wouldn't be there—Oh, I want to go home! I want just to look at it!—I'll come back quite quick—I b'lieve I'll die if I don't go!—Molly O'Rourke died, because she went to America. I'll die, too—I'm all sick inside—" She shook all over with sobs; her voice rose to a wail of utter woe. "I must see it—all green—and the colt—oh, he can go—he'll be a fine horse, miss, entirely—look at the legs of him already!—Where's the sugar, then, you bad boy? He knows!—All dirt and smoke and houses—and houses—and a great big monnyment where people kill theirselves. Nell, where are you? Nell—I b'lieve you're throwin' yourself off the monnyment—"

She quieted down a little; her body shook with deep, silent sobs. She began whispering to herself.

"If I could just see you—just for one minute—just walk 'long on the grass—by the stream—and up the Kilsparran hill—and go and see Biddy—with the turf smokin' in my eyes—and smell it—" Then she broke out crying again.

"I want to go home! I want to go home!"

Nell tried to soothe her. She was trembling herself; but the Atom's little body was torn and shaken with her awful weeping. She clung to Nell, crying out pitifully that she must go home—she must go home.

"I can't bear it any longer—I'm stiflin'—please—just to let me feel it—I'll come back—so good—oh, please—I must go home! Oh, I want to go home! Where's Denis? I want Denis—"

"I'll go and fetch him, dear. Will you wait?"

She went out on to the landing. He was walking up and down: he turned quickly.

She shut the door quietly, and went to meet him. Her face was quite white; when she spoke, her voice shook.

"She wants you. She—she's crying for home—" Her lips quivered so that she could not go on. "I can't quiet her. She's—oh, I can't stand it, Denis!" She broke into sudden passionate tears.

"Don't cry, old girl. I'll see if I can quiet her."

He went into the room. Sheila Pat was crouched up on her bed, moaning: "I want to go home! I want to go home!"

She lifted her head, and her heavy eyes leapt to his with a wild gleam of hope. She stretched out her arms; she was shaking all over.

"Denis—oh, Denis—I want to go home!"

He put his arms round her.

"Try to be good, Atom—try to be quiet, and go to sleep." His face worked; he bit his lip. "You'll go—some day," he said huskily.

"Let me go now—-I'll be so good—I won't stay a minute—if I can see it—just feel it—and smell it—oh, Denis—Denis—I want to go home!"

"You shall go, Atom."

There was a sudden breathless lull. She gave a little shiver.

"I—I didn't quite hear—" she whispered hoarsely.

He glanced, his blue eyes desperate, across at Nell, then down at the wild, incredulous little face upturned to his. His eyes cleared, grew deeply tender.

"I said that you shall go." His voice was clear, firm. "Directly your cold has gone I will take you across for a few days if you still want to go."

She dropped suddenly forward against his chest.

"Please hold me." Her faint little whisper told of sudden ineffable peace.

They wrapped her in blankets, and he took her into his arms and walked up and down the room with her. She pulled her arm out of the coverings and stroked his cheek with a gesture almost of adoration.

"I don't think," a sudden passionate whisper came from her, "God can be quite so nice as you!"

Up and down he went.

"Try to go to sleep, Atom."

"Yes, Denis."

Presently she started trembling.

"Denis?"

"Yes, acushla."

"Have—have I been asleep?"

"No."

"—I didn't dream that you—you said—"

"I said that when your cold is better, I will take you home for a few days."

She gave a little wriggle and a snuggle of utter joy.

"I was 'fraid I'd dreamt it."

"Denis, would you mind keep sayin' it every now and then?"

Nell sat by the fire and watched him tramp the room. Once Molly peeped round the door, but was frowned away. Once he tried to lay her down, but she objected with drowsy terror.

"Hold, me, Denis! Say it again!"

Presently.

"Denis, if we took all the poor mad people to Ireland, wouldn't they get better, and not want to kill theirselves any more?—Please just say it again."

"Where's Nell? I want to say good night to her."

Nell came and kissed her softly.

"Poor Nell—may she come, too, Denis?—All green—and cool—I—I can most smell it already—I like lying my cheek on the grass—like—this—it's so—cool—it smells—all—wet—Please—say it—again."

Up and down the room he went, while she slept in his arms. Nell signed to him to put her down, but he glanced down at the small white face in the blankets, and shook his head.

But at last he put her into her bed, and covered her up. For a minute they stood waiting, but Sheila Pat lay still, her breathing soft and regular.

Denis turned to Nell; he put his hand on her shoulder, marched her out of the room, and into the Stronghold.

Molly was there, frightened and sleepy.

"She's all right now. Fast asleep. Go to bed, old girl."

"It's been such a horrid day—is she really better?"

"Yes. I hope she'll be all right to-morrow. Scoot."

Molly went yawning out of the room.

They stood a minute, looking into the fire. Then Nell said:—

"Denis, don't you think—it will make it worse—for her—after?"

He answered without any hesitation:—

"There wasn't any worse then."

She dropped tiredly into a chair.

"No," she said.

He seized the poker, and began hammering at a lump of coal.

"I suppose the money—" she worried.

"Can't be helped! Nell, I couldn't do anything else! I—I couldn't stand it!"

They were silent a little while. Presently he said:—

"I don't believe she'll go. If I know the Atom when she's calm and all right, she'll stick to her guns. If she doesn't—if she still wants to go—I take her. The coming back—having it all over again—will be awful for her, but there was nothing else to do."

"No," she agreed.

CHAPTER XXX

"Good morning, Atom."

Nell bent caressingly over the bed, and laid her hand lightly on a cool little brow.

"Good mornin', Nell."

"You're better, asthore, you're better." There was a gay lilt to her voice that told her relief, her joy, more plainly than her words.

"Yes," the Atom said. "Will I get up now, Nell?"

"Oh, no, dear, you must wait till Dr. Everton has been. Do you ache anywhere now?"

"Only a little."

Nell looked down into the sombre eyes, then turned away.

Sheila Pat lay stiff and still, her small face frowning a little, solemn, mournful.

When Denis came cheerily in, she looked at him quickly, nervously, and her face flushed a little.

"Well, invalidish Atom, you'll soon be up and worrying me again, won't you?"

"Good mornin', Denis."

"Pardon. Good morning. Aren't you going to give me a kiss?"

She turned her face to his languidly. He looked at Nell and raised his eyebrows. Then he sat down on the bed and talked.

Sheila Pat lay very quiet and answered monosyllabically.

"You're very unkind to me, Atom, you know."

She gave him another odd little glance, and her face grew scarlet.

"I—I'm thinkin'," she stammered. "—I'm not unkind—"

"Of course you're not! I was joking. I must be off now. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

When he had gone, she lifted her head.

"Nell, when is Dr. Everton comin'?"

"Any moment."

"Nell—"

"Yes, dear?"

"I—I wish to speak to him—alone, please."

For a moment Nell looked startled.

"There isn't anything—you don't mean there's some pain you haven't told us of?"

"No. I'm quite well now."

"Very well. You shall, dear."

"Thank you."

Molly tiptoed into the room, knocked a photograph off the mantle shelf, bade the Atom a loudly whispered good morning, stood on one leg, then on the other, and tiptoed out again.

"Nell, isn't Dr. Everton here yet?"

"He will be presently, Atom."

"Will he come straight up to me?"

"Oh, yes."

"Are you sure? Perhaps he's talkin' to Aunt Kezia now?"

"I'll go and see," soothingly.

In a few minutes he came. Miss Kezia came upstairs with him, but at Nell's request she followed her presently from the room, and left the doctor and the Atom alone.

"Dr. Everton!"

"Yes, my dear?"

Pause.

He looked down at her surprised. Sheila Pat was breathing hard; her eyes were wildly eager.

"Something is troubling you," he said gently. "Tell me what it is!"

But she shrank back nervously into the bed.

"You see—I—"

"Well?" He felt the fluttering pulse again. "Tell me, little one."

"Was I—" Pause; then, with a burst, "Was I 'lirious last night?"

"Now, now, you mustn't get nervous—"

Her face stopped him. He rubbed his chin and studied her perplexedly. He was trying to discover what it was that she wanted.

"Was I?" She sat up, clung to the bed knob with one hand. "I—I thought I was!"

The expressive voice held a note of despairing doubt in the last words that helped him.

"Well, you were very feverish and," he was feeling his way, "you certainly didn't quite know what you were saying—um! Yes, you were delirious!" he finished with sudden heartiness. There was no doubting now what it was she wanted. At his words she sank down on to the pillow with a sort of little croon of relief.

"When a person's 'lirious she might say—say very foolish things—she might—ask for things—she'd be 'shamed to if she knew—"

He was sure of his way now. He pulled his chair closer, and his clever face softened.

"I should think so, indeed. Why, now, there was a young lady I was attending,—she was quite grown-up, too,—and when she is well she's a very sensible sort of girl, but she was delirious, and what do you think she kept crying out for? Why, an elephant—a real, live elephant!"

Sheila Pat laughed.

He took her hand into his.

"Oh, yes, people say and do very queer things when they are delirious. I had a big boy once who wanted a doll, and another who wanted to start for Australia." He paused as he felt the hand in his give a little jerk.

"Do persons—often want to—to go somewhere when they're 'lirious?"

"Very often. It's one of the commonest wants, little one."

Sheila Pat was smiling; she lay looking up at him, her face pale, tired, but very peaceful.

"You're going to be a good little girl, and keep very quiet, and take all your medicine—"

"I—I'm just goin' to be as good as—as snow-drops."

"Why snowdrops?"

She drew her brows together in thought. "I don't know: snowdrops are just good through and through."

He smiled.

"I do think you're such a nice doctor," Sheila Pat said earnestly.

When Nell crept in a few minutes later, she was fast asleep. When she woke, she took her medicine without a murmur.

"Is Denis home, Nell?"

"I think he's just come in. Yes, here he is."

He entered with a beautiful bunch of parma violets.

"With Lancaster's compliments. Aren't you proud, Atom?"

"They are very beautiful," but her eye was absent.

Nell took them and buried her nose in them.

"Denis, Dr. Everton says I was 'lirious last night."

"Poor old Atom."

"And—and he says when a person's 'lirious, they want elephants and Australia and—and to go to places—"

There was a pause.

The Atom turned her face a little away on the pillow.

"I remember—some—I—I didn't know what I was sayin', Denis—I—I wouldn't—have—said—it if—"

"Of course you wouldn't. We know that. But what I said holds good, Atom. If you want me to take you home for a few days, I will!"

There was silence in the room. Sheila Pat had turned her face to the pillow and buried it deep. Nell stood, the violets pressed against her cheek, waiting.

"No—thank you." It came with a little catch between the two first words, but firm, decided.

Denis bent his head suddenly, and whispered in her ear. She turned, stretched up her arms, and held him tight. Tears were running quietly down her face and dropping on to her nightgown, but Nell caught an ecstatically proud note in the whispered query, "Do you—really-truly—think I'm all that?"

When he had gone, she turned to Nell.

"Am I very heavy, Nell?"

Nell felt suddenly what a bit of a baby Sheila Pat was: she stroked her cheek gently.

"You weigh about as much as a good-sized robin. Why?"

"I do feel," wistfully, "I'd like to sit on your lap a little while!"

"Oh, petsums, come along."

She fell asleep almost directly.

That evening, wrapped in blankets, sitting in a large arm-chair, the Atom received three visitors.

Stewart came first. He was very subdued, shy of this white-faced Atom in the blankets.

He sat down and stared at her.

"You're to intertain me," she told him peremptorily.

Stewart, just about to speak, at this awful mandate flushed and collapsed.

Sheila Pat watched him relentlessly.

"Sure you English are queer! Mum! Mum! Mum!"

"Do you feel better?" he burst out.

"You know I do, else I wouldn't be receivin' visitors."

Silence.

"You're not intertainin' me," warned the Atom.

"I don't know how! I've never done it!"

"I think you're a very silly little boy, and you're not intertainin' me at all! You'd better go, I think."

He got as far as the door.

"Tommy, come back!"

He stood and faced her, his thin little body stretched to its utmost limit.

"I'm not a little boy!"

"Tommy, how's Peter?"

He came back eagerly.

"I say, what d'you think he swallowed yesterday?"

Ted Lancaster came next.

"Mayn't I pull your pig-tail?" he asked gently.

"'Tisn't any manners you English have got at all!" Sheila Pat retorted.

"Ah, that's all right. 'Pon my word, when I came in you looked so good, I was afraid I'd never be allowed to be rude to you again. May I hide that medicine bottle? I do hate medicine bottles. They carry me back to a sick room of my own."

She asked interestedly, "Were you 'lirious?"

"Rather!"

She sat forward, her face alight with eagerness

"Did you want a elephant and to go to Australia?"

"I don't know about the elephant. But I know I wanted to go to Australia, or anywhere else, so long as medicine bottles and beef-tea and thermometers didn't grow there."

She hesitated, her eyes never leaving his face.

"But—but did you—did you say things—"

He smiled.

"Yes, I said things, Sheila Pat!"

"Awful things? Things you'd never, never say when you were well?"

"I hope I shouldn't!"

A tired little frown creased her forehead.

"Did you—did you ask for things?"

"Oh, yes, heaps of 'em! I nearly wept because they wouldn't give me my organ into bed with me. And foot-balls—I was always begging for foot-balls. And one night I insisted on its being imperative that I should start off for Paris—"

Eagerly she interrupted, "Did you worry and worry?"

"They had to hold me down."

She lay back in the pillows; she gave a little excited laugh.

"Aren't persons queer when they're 'lirious?"

"Sheila Pat, catch hold!"

He tilted a brown-paper parcel into her lap.

"It's a book about horses, and there're plenty of photographs in it, so will you forgive its not being Irish? And remember that I hate being thanked, Sheila Pat. If you thank me for it, I'll kiss you. So now you know."

She was turning the pages with trembling fingers. He watched the expressive face as she bent over the beautiful photographs.

"Nell," Denis poked his head round the door, "may that conceited Atom receive another visitor? Mr. Yovil wants to see her."

"Yes, with great pleasure!" shrilled out Sheila Pat, excitedly.

She turned to Ted; she lifted up her face.

"I love it! I love it!"

"You're thanking me!"

He bent and kissed her.

"I'm jealous," Mark Yovil said sadly, as he entered the room. "He isn't half so nice as I am, Sheila Pat! You ask my mother. She's down in Devonshire, but we could send her a wire. And you've never been his Social Prompter, have you? Please send him away, Sheila Pat!"

"I will, anyway," Nell laughed.

Mark Yovil only stayed a few minutes. He looked at the Atom's excited face, her bright eyes, and talked quietly to Nell. Then he went.

For a quarter of an hour Sheila Pat studied her precious book.

Then Sarah appeared with a petition from Herr Schmidt for just a "beep at the little Miss Sheila."

He came in, laboriously tiptoeing, beaming.

"Ze poor little invalid! You are better, hein?"

Sheila Pat was very tired.

"I'm quite well, thank you," she responded, her manner exceedingly grown-up.

"There's only one thing about her that troubles us, Herr Schmidt," laughed Nell. "She's so good! She takes her medicine without a grimace! She's so meek and good I'm quite uneasy."

Sheila Pat fidgeted restlessly. She explained earnestly. "I'm not really good! I'm doin' it for—for a reason of my own."

Herr Schmidt seemed to think that exquisitely funny. He chuckled like a great fat baby.

"Ze funny little child!" he chuckled, "ze very funny little child."

He took off his spectacles, rubbed them with a gigantic handkerchief, and said, "Ach, I forget!" He fumbled in his coat-tail pocket; he dragged forth a limp and very much sat upon brown-paper parcel. He eyed it proudly.

"Ach, zat is why I zink her so nice for a bed! See, I sit on her, but it does not matter!"

"Great Scott!" ejaculated Denis in Nell's ear.

Herr Schmidt handed the parcel to Sheila Pat. He stood watching, beaming at her over his spectacles. Sheila Pat pulled off the paper; she gave a little gasp. There was a tense silence.

The present was a baby doll—a rag baby doll.

Nell quavered desperately, "What a fine colour it has!" And she averted her eyes hastily from the horrible, crimson-dabbed cheeks.

"You like her, little one?" Herr Schmidt's tone was anxious.

"Thank you," said Sheila Pat, in a subdued little voice. She stared fixedly into the fire, her head averted from the Thing in her lap.

"Ach, I zink berhaps she does not like it?" Herr Schmidt whispered loudly to Nell. "And I zink it so sweet!"

"She is tired. She has had too many visitors. It was so awfully kind of you to bring it for her, Herr Schmidt. I want her to go to sleep now."

Sweetly Nell sped his departure. When he had gone, Sheila Pat, still with averted head, dropped her knee till the doll slid to the floor. She looked up at Nell, outraged dignity in every feature.

"Please take the—carrion thing—away!"

And to Kate Kearney she presently whispered:—

"Oh, K.K., he's never forgotten! He thinks I'm a baby! And it's all that petticoat! I knew it!"

CHAPTER XXXI

These came a morning when Miss Kezia breakfasted in angry state, alone. At eight o'clock she sat down, as usual, to the table. With down-drawn lip she filled the five cups with coffee, then started on her porridge. Every now and then her eye glanced at the four bowls of porridge with their rapidly lessening issue of steam. From overhead there came, at intervals, the banging of a door, the rush of footsteps from one room to another, a burst of laughter now and then. Miss Kezia went on with her breakfast. Once Sarah knocked timidly, and, with a scared face, dared the whispered suggestion that she should take the porridge "to keep it hot." Her courage failed before ever Miss Kezia's grim lips had begun to frame an answer, and she fled back to the refuge of the kitchen.

From above came Denis's voice, jubilant, a musical shout of joy.

"'Miss Judy O'Connor, she lived forninst me

And tinder words to her I wrote—'

"I say, Nell, did I leave my towels in your room?"

Down came Miss Kezia's upper lip.

From above:—

"A stud is an animate article, possessing the human attributes of legs and devilment—got him, by Jove! Now thin ye young devil, is it hidin' from me, indeed! I'll be teachin' ye a lesson—"

"Denis, have you seen my hair-ribbon?"

"Oh," this was Nell's voice, "I wish I had a tail like a kitten, to run round and round after!"

Miss Kezia's expression grew painfully long-suffering.

"If you were havin' a tail in this London, there wouldn't be room to run round after it!" Scorn vibrated in this voice.

A pause.

Thud—thud—patter— Then, with a startling suddenness, a wild Irish whoop.

Miss Kezia jumped badly, and the angry, shamed colour flooded her cheeks. She rose—a quick succession of whoops sounded nearer and nearer—she went out into the hall. Denis was coming downstairs, two at a time, and performing an Irish jig at the same moment. The others were behind him.

"May I request that you cease making those horrible noises? I do not want the police here, thinking murder is being committed."

Unfortunately this struck their perverse minds as being intensely funny.

Miss Kezia went back to the dining room, and they followed her to cold coffee and congealed porridge. But coffee as cold as the ice round the North pole, and porridge as congealed as lead, were powerless, as Miss Kezia's disapproval was powerless, to quench the hilarity in the atmosphere that morning.