"A bit of a gossoon, miss, out there in the yard beyant. An' he wouldn't give me his name; but sure I know him well for a boy of the Maddens', an' one of the Coole people. His father, an' his gran'father before him, were laborers with the ould Squire."
"Ah, indeed!" says Kit. By this time she has recovered her surprise and her composure. "Thank you, Bridget," she says, with quite a grandiloquent air: "put it there, on that table. It is of no consequence, I dare say: you can go."
Bridget—who, like all her countrywomen, dearly likes a love-affair, and is quite aware of young Mr. Desmond's passion for her mistress—is disappointed.
"The gossoon said he was to wait for an answer, miss," she says, insinuatingly. "An' faix," waxing confidential, "I think I caught sight of the coat-tails of Misther Desmond's man outside the yard gate."
"You should never think on such occasions, Bridget; and coat-tails are decidedly low," says the younger Miss Beresford, with scathing reproof.
"They weren't very low, miss. He wore one o' them cutaway coats," says Bridget, in an injured tone.
"You fail to grasp my meaning," says Kit, gravely. "However, let it pass. If this note requires an answer, you can wait in the next room until I write it."
"Very well, miss," says the discomfited Bridget; and Kit, finding herself in another moment alone, approaches the table, and with a beating heart takes up the note. "It is—it must be from Brian!"
The plot thickens; and she has been selected to act a foremost part in it! She is to be the confidante,—the tried and trusted friend; without her aid all the fair edifice Cupid is erecting would crumble into dust.
And is there no danger, too, to be encountered,—perhaps to be met and overcome? If perchance all be discovered,—if Aunt Priscilla should suddenly be apprised of what is now going on beneath her very spectacles,—will not she,—Kit,—in her character of "guide, philosopher, and friend" to the culprits, come in for a double share of censure? Yes, truly there are breakers ahead, and difficulties to be overcome. There is joy and a sense of heroism in this thought; and she throws up her small head defiantly, and puts out one foot with quite a martial air, as it comes to her.