"Oh, Darby!" said Gheena. "Poor old Darby Dillon!"
Psyche, late Mona, wished to know if this Darby had no money at all.
Gheena explained very gently that Darby was a cripple, lame and twisted.
They went down together—sunlight and moonlight, ripe chestnut and a mistletoe berry—having, with the mysterious ease of which girlhood is capable, become fast friends.
Darby Dillon was just hobbling across the hall. He reddened, as he always did, when meeting strangers and the shame of his marring was stared at by new eyes, summed up and pitied. But this girl did not seem to look at him as though she noticed; she came up to tell him how already she loved this grey Ireland, and to ask eager questions about hunting and jumping, and the joys which she had only read of.
"I bought quite a lot of books and read them," she said. "A Badminton and Jorrocks, and oh, crowds of things! But I've only ridden on the roads, seen hunting once or twice from a motor, so I didn't understand. You see, we lived in Scotland before mother died, and then I was abroad. But I'm coming out here, even if I fall off."
"You won't make a hole in the ground," said Darby thoughtfully.
"You ride—like men in pictures," said Psyche.
Darby looked up sharply, his face flushing, to see if she was laughing at the cripple, but the new experience of being admired after years of tolerant pity made the flush deepen.
Dearest George corrected his stepdaughter several times as to her stupidity about Miss Delorme's name.