‘Faix, and I’m thinkin’ ye will,’ says Mrs. Denis, watching him with her arms akimbo till he disappears round the corner. ‘’Tis mighty purty eyes she’s got in that mighty purty head of hers. An’ so he’s not goin’ to turn her out, after all! Didn’t I tell you, Bridget Moriarty,’ rubbing her chin, on which a very handsome beard is growing, ‘that he’d soften whin he put his glance upon her?’
CHAPTER XII.
‘Jest and youthful jollity,
Quips and cranks, and wanton wiles,
Nods and becks, and wreathed smiles.
‘Where’s our beloved auntie?’ asks Mr. Fitzgerald, looking generally round him from his seat on the tail of Betty’s gown.
It is the evening of the same day, and still divinely warm. Not yet has night made its first approach, and from bush to bush the birds are calling, as if in haste to get as much merriment out of the departing day as time will give them. From here—in the bushes round the tennis-ground, the one solitary court that Carew Barry and his cousin, Dom Fitzgerald, have made with their own hands, after a hard tussle with the Rector for the bit of ground, that seemed to him quite a big slice off his glebe—to the big syringa-tree beyond, the sweet, glad music of the birds swells and grows, filling the evening air with delicate throbbings. Ever the little creatures seem to call one to another; passionately sometimes, as if bursting their little throats in their wild joy, and anon softly, pleadingly, but always calling, calling, calling.
From the old-fashioned garden beyond comes the scent of the roses—all old-world roses, as befits the garden, but none the less beautiful for that. The rose céleste and the white rose unique, the cabbage rose and the perfect rose of a hundred leaves, all lend their sweetness to the air; indeed, on this June evening the place is ‘on fire with roses.’
The little group sitting on the edge of the tennis-ground seems very happy and contented—lazy, perhaps, is a better word. Susan, as usual, has Bonnie in her lap, and Tom, the baby, has fallen asleep with his head on Betty’s knee. Jacky, still full of memories of the awful burglar he had interviewed in the morning, is wondering whether he will raid the village to-night, and if so, whether he will carry off Aunt Jemima; whilst Carew, the eldest son, who is seventeen, and therefore a year younger than Susan, is lazily dwelling on the best choice of a stream for to-morrow’s fishing.
His cousin, Dom Fitzgerald, is the first to break the lovely spell of silence that has fallen on them. He is a cousin of the Barrys, and a nephew of their father and of Miss Jemima Barry also, the Rector’s sister, who, since the death of her sister-in-law, has always lived with them, and who, if a most exemplary person, is certainly what is commonly described as ‘trying.’