After the meal was over Miss Usher effaced herself with a murmured excuse about letters, and left the father and daughter to talk to one another alone.
“Come here, my dear,” he said, drawing up a chair, “and let us endeavour to know one another. Talk to me, won’t you.”
Joseline accepted the seat in trembling silence. What could she talk to him about? The price of calves, the Hennesseys’ wedding, the mission at Glenveigh, her new clothes? Cleverly, and by degrees, her father drew her out, and prevailed on her to thaw—to speak of herself and her upbringing; and as she became more familiar with his presence and the sound of her own voice, she talked a great deal, and unwittingly displayed her simple mind, and simple heart. She was a dear, sweet, good girl—the image of her dead mother; but twenty-one years yawned between him and her, and as he listened to her artless conversation, he felt overcome by the appalling state of her ignorance of what may be called, “life above stairs.”
“Yes, I’ve had good schoolin’,” she was saying. “I can cast up figures, and knit, and mend lace; the nuns taught me.”
“Yes; and anything else?”
“I can sing—I was among the altos, and once I sang at a concert, and many a time at a dance.”
“I’m glad you can sing. Will you sing to me now, my dear?”
“Is it here?” she faltered. “Sure, I’ve no concertina.”
“That is no matter.”