“Well, it’s the same on a railway.”
“Ah, Kate,” laughed her father, “you’re always railroading.”
“Well, I was just thinking (she paused for just a breath) that if that young Mr. McGuire is still conductor (another impediment) you ought to try and get him on our road.”
“Now, whatever made you think of that handsome young Irishman?”
“Well—”
“Well?—”
At that moment the band having assembled on deck, not twenty feet away, struck up a lively quickstep, and the sound of the E flat thrilled Miss Landon, as she had not been thrilled since she came out of her teens. She knew that tune, though she had heard it but once, and as the leading cornet walked up through the air, the words came to her:—
“Arrah, Patsy! git up f’om th’ fire,
An’ guv th’ mon a sate;
Can’t ye see that it’s Misther McGuire,