"Yes; and you would never know she was any relation, would you?" said Katie. "Would you guess we were cousins?"
"'Deed I would not. And I never thought them English ladies were so handsome till now," he rejoined, resting his hands on the top of his stick, and speaking in a deliberate, confidential squeak. "I declare that wan up at Ballyredmond has a face that sour on her, she gives me the cramps every time I look at her; an' her walk!" raising his stick and his eyes simultaneously, "for all the world like a turkey among stubbles. Now, av I was asked——"
"Darby, what do you think? Only fancy! she met John Dillon face to face last evening!" interrupted Katie with extraordinary irrelevance.
A very curious look flashed into Darby's eyes. It came and went in the space of half a second, and he rejoined, in a peevish, argumentative tone,—
"And sure, and how would Miss Denis know him?"
"She describes him exactly; cap and all."
"Yes, but all the same, I'm positive that it was no ghost," supplemented Helen stoutly.
"Holy St. Patrick, do ye hear her!" ejaculated Darby, in a tone of pious horror. "Well, well, well; poor young lady; it's easy seen she is a stranger! Don't ye be for letting her out about the place alone after dark just now," he added in a sort of husky aside.
"It's rather early for him yet," grumbled Katie. "From August to February is his usual time."
"Yes, the shooting season!" rejoined Helen, with a merry laugh. "Nothing more is needed to persuade me that the notorious John is anything worse than a common poacher!"