It was impossible to be shy with Dido and Katie; in a few moments their cousin felt perfectly at home, and they were all holding animated eager conversation, and talking together as if they had known each other for weeks. Katie was an incessant chatter-box; no matter who was speaking, her voice was sure to chime in also, and to keep up a running accompaniment similar to the variations on a popular air! She was fair, very plump, and rather pretty,—with the beauty of rosy cheeks, bright eyes, and curly locks. Dido, the eldest, was tall, and graceful, with a head and throat that would have served for a sculptor's model; she had quantities of brown hair, and greenish-grey eyes. Without being exactly handsome, she had a look of remarkable distinction, and as she stood at the table busily carving a fowl for the delectation of her hungry guest, that guest said to herself, that her cousin Dido, for all her threadbare dress and washed-out red cotton pinafore, aye, and her brogue,—had the air—of—yes—of a princess!
"When shall I see uncle?" inquired his niece, with dutiful politeness.
"Oh, the Padré never appears in the daytime," replied Katie, "and he only goes out with the owls; but he will come down and welcome you, of course. He is very much occupied just now,—and grudges every moment, his time is so precious."
A grunt of scornful dissent from the old woman here attracted Katie's notice, and once more resuming her knitting, and her chair, she said,—
"Well, what's the matter now, Biddy, eh? Tell me, what do you think of Miss Denis?" speaking precisely as if Miss Denis were a hundred miles away.
Biddy thus adjured, immediately laid down a plate, and resting her hands on her hips, surveyed the new-comer as coolly and deliberately as if she was a picture.
"Shure, I'm no great judge, Miss Katie! but since you ax me,—I'll just give ye me mind. I think she's a teetotally beautiful young lady,—and that it would be no harm if there was twins of her!"
Helen coloured and laughed, and Dido exclaimed, "Well, that's more than you ever said of me, Biddy, and I'm your own nurse-child that you reared ever since I was six months old—you never wished for twins of me!"
"Troth, and why would I? Many and many's the night that I lost me rest along of you. Aye, but you wor the peevish little scaltheen! Wan of you was plenty!"
"And you never called me a teetotally beautiful young lady! I'm offended."