"You are wrong, Penelope, utterly wrong. It was in '63."
"I am nearly always wrong," says Miss Penelope, meekly, yet with a latent sense of suppressed power. "But I cannot forget that in the year George Desmond behaved so shamefully to our sweet Katherine, Madam O'Connor's cow had two calves, and that," triumphantly, "was in '64."
"You are right—quite right," says Miss Priscilla, vanquished, but not cast down. "So it was. What a memory you have, my dear Penelope!"
"Nothing when compared with yours," says Miss Penelope, smiling.
At this moment the door opens and an old man enters the room. He is clad in the garb of a servant, though such wonderful habiliments as those in which he has arrayed himself would be difficult to purchase nowadays: whether there are more wrinkles in his forehead or in his trousers is a nice question that could not readily be decided at a moment's notice.
He is quite ten years older than either of his mistresses; and, indeed, both he and his garments belong to a by-gone generation. His knees are bent, so is his back; his face is like a Ribston pippin, his coat is a marvel both in cut and in texture, but his linen is irreproachable, and what hair nature has still left him is most carefully brushed. There is, too, in his small gray Irish eyes a mischievous twinkle, and a fund of honest good humor that goes far to defy the ravages of time. In spite of his seventy years and his quaint attire, he still at times can hold his own with many a younger man.
"Well, Timothy," says Miss Priscilla, looking up as he approaches the table, "we have had news of Miss Katherine's—I mean Mrs. Beresford's—children."
"Rest her sowl!" says Timothy, in a reverential tone, alluding to that part of the late Mrs. Beresford.
"It seems they have landed and will be with us to-day."
"The day, miss?" growing brisk at this unexpected announcement.