Convinced of his purpose, the lady, for such she unmistakably appeared, rose from the seat as the fellow was about to raise his hat as a preliminary to further overtures, and sought another bench directly opposite the one from which Dennis had been a witness to her apparent persecution.
The intruder, however, refusing evidently to believe that the action of the lady had a personal application, deliberately walked past this new resting place and surveyed its occupant with insolent estimation.
A short distance away his pace slackened; he was about to return.
With genuine Irish impulse, Dennis, rising hurriedly, proceeded to the bench occupied by the disturbed lady, and, with a bow that was not deficient in grace and evident good intention, said:
“Excuse me, but say the wurrd, madam, and I’ll see that you are troubled no more with that loafer.”
For an instant, with an expression of countenance that suggested a fear that the flight from one intrusion was but the introduction to another, the lady looked upon Dennis with an astonishment that was partly the result of his picturesque contrasts of voice and visage.
Then, with fine intuition realizing, in the ingenuous face of the young Irishman, the unmistakable evidence of kindly impulse, she said, with a modulation in which Dennis was able to detect the accent of good breeding:
“I thank you, sir; I am tired; that man annoys me; but I would rather move on than be the cause of a disturbance.”
“If you will permit me,” responded Dennis promptly, “I will sit beside you long enough to indicate that you have met a friend; then I think that he will move off.”
The lady looked at Dennis with an uncertain smile, in which there was just enough restraint to urge the young man to add hastily: “An’ when he is gone for good, I will go too.”