"Oh, Terry! how can you be so silly?" says Kit, with another merry laugh.
"How am I silly?" with an impassible countenance. "Young Driscoll is silly, of course, and evidently looks upon part of the breakfast-ware as enemies of some sort. But that is not my fault."
"Hiccoughs he must have meant, my dear," says Miss Priscilla, hastily. "Dear—dear—dear! what a terrible shock he—they—must have got last night at Coole!"
When day is deepening into eventide, Monica, finding Kit alone, kneels down beside her, and lays her cheek to hers.
All day long she has been brooding miserably over her lover's danger, and dwelling with foolish persistency upon future dangers born of her terrified imagination.
She had been down to their trysting-place at the river, hardly hoping to find him there, yet had been terribly disappointed when she had not found him, Brian at that very moment being busy with police and magistrates and law generally.
"What is it, ducky?" says Kit, very tenderly, laying down her book and pressing her pretty sister close to her.
"Kit," says Monica, with tearful eyes, "do you think it is all true that Timothy said this morning about their—their starving at Coole? Oh Kit, I can't bear to think he is hungry!"
"It is dreadful! I don't know what to think," says Kit. "If nobody will sell them anything, I suppose they have nothing to eat."