"Don't be afraid. It is quite the correct thing to be eccentric nowadays. One is nowhere if not bizarre," says Rodney, laughing; "so I dare say you will find yourself the very height of fashion."
"Now I think you are making fun of me," says Mona, smiling sweetly; and, lifting her hand, she pinches his ear lightly, and very softly, lest she should hurt him.
Here the old woman at the fire, who has been getting up and down from her three-legged stool during the past few minutes, and sniffing at the pot in an anxious manner, gives way to a loud sigh of relief. Lifting the pot from its crook, she lays it on the earthen floor.
Then she strains the water from it, and looks with admiration upon its steaming contents. "The murphies" (as, I fear, she calls the potatoes) are done to a turn.
"Maybe," says Betty Corcoran, turning in a genial fashion to Mona and Geoffrey, "ye'd ate a pratie, would ye, now? They're raal nice an' floury. Ye must be hungry, Miss Mona, afther all the work ye've gone through; an' if you an' your gintleman would condescind to the like of my dinner, 'tis ready for ye, an' welcome ye are to it. Do, now!" heartily. "The praties is gran' this year,—praises be for all mercies. Amen."
"They do look nice," says Mona, "and I am hungry. If we won't be a great trouble to you, Betty," with graceful Hesitation, "I think we should like some."
"Arrah! throuble is it?" says Betty, scornfully. "Tisn't throuble I'm thinkin' of anyway, when you're by."
"Will you have something to eat Geoffrey?" says Mona.
"Thank you," says Geoffrey, "but——"
"Yes, do, alannah!" says the old lady, standing with one hand upon her hips and the other holding tightly a prodigious "Champion." "'Twill set ye up afther yer walk."