"Well, I always thought ye were as free-handed as Mrs. Ryan; and she never asks me to look at less than a shilling! But maybe ye can't so well afford it, dear; and God bless ye all the same."
As Helen and her cousins returned from church on Sunday, they descried the "Fancy" sitting on the hall door-steps; a clean cap on her head, and a pipe in her mouth.
"Your servant, ladies," she said, without rising, and gazing over their heads in a rather abstracted (not to say embarrassing) fashion.
"Well, Judy, and what is it to-day?" inquired Dido.
"Oh, it's only Mr. Barry. He is inside"—with a wave of her pipe. "He is a Justice of the Pace now, and I want him to do a small turn for me. Just go in and don't trouble yourself about me, dearie."
"So Barry is here!" cried Katie, visibly delighted. "What brings him? Sunday is never his day?"
"No," admitted her sister, as she followed her into the hall; "but he has come to see Helen; and it gives him an excuse for his best clothes."
Two large pointers with swaggering bodies, animated tails, and muddy paws, now rushed out of the drawing-room to meet them; and in the drawing-room, extended full length on the sofa, in an easy, negligent attitude, they discovered the pointers' master. Turning his face towards the door, he said,—
"So you are back at last," then rising slowly, and putting his boots on the ground, he raised himself to his full height, shot his cuffs, and stared fixedly at Helen, and she at him (it must be confessed); he was far, far worse than she had expected. She beheld a middle-sized man, with bandy legs, a red face, and beaming countenance,—lit up by an inward sun of self-complacency—dressed in a short cutaway coat, a white waistcoat, and brilliant tie,—the sleeves of his coat and the legs of his trousers revealed an unusual margin of red wrist and grey stocking; but these discrepancies did not occasion the smallest embarrassment to their wearer.
"I hope you have been pretty comfortable, Barry?" inquired Dido, with a rueful glance at the tumbled cushions and antimacassars.