“Ay, and do it well, too!” said he, while his eyes glistened with a look of triumph. “Come here, Kitty, darlin’,” said he, taking her hand, and leading her along at his side, “I want to spake a word to you. Now, Kitty, though you’re only a child, as one may say, you’ve more wit in your head nor many a grown woman, and if you hadn’t, it’s the heavy heart I’d have this day leavin’ you among strangers.”
“Don’t fret about that, grandfather; it’s an elegant fine place to be in. Wait till I show you the dairy, that’s grander inside than ever I seen a house in Ireland; and if you saw the cowhouse, the beasts has straps with buckles round their necks, and boords under their feet, just like Christians, only betther.”
“A long sight betther nor Christians!” muttered he, half savagely. Then recovering, he went on: “You see, here’s how it is. ‘Twas out of a ‘conceit’—a sort of fancy—they took you, and out of the same, my honey, they may leave you some fine mornin’ when you’ve got ways that would be hard to give up, and used to twenty things you couldn’t do without; and I was tellin’ them that, and askin’ how it would be if that day was to come?”
“Ah,” cried she, with an impatient toss of her head, “I wish you hadn’t put such thoughts into their heads at all. Sure, ain’t I here now? Haven’t they tuk me away from my home, and where would I go if they turned me out? You want to make it asy for them, grandfather, isn’t that it?”
“Faix, I believe you’re right, Kitty.”
“Sure, I know I am. And why would they send me away if I didn’t displase them, and you’ll see that I’ll not do that.”
“Are you sure and certain of that?”
“As sure as I’m here. Don’t fret about it, grandfather.”
“Ay, but darlin’, what will plase one wouldn’t, may be, be plasin’ to another; there’s the mistress and her sister—and they’re not a bit like each other—and there’s the master and that ould man with the goold chain round his neck—he’s your guardian.”
“Oh, is he?” cried she; “see what he gave me—he took it off his watch-chain. He said, ‘There’s a little sweetheart for you.’” And she drew from her bosom her handkerchief, in which she had carefully rolled up a small figure of a man in armour, of fine gold and delicate workmanship. “And the little girl here—Ada, they call her—tells me that he is far richer than her papa, and has a house ten times grander.”