‘Good-evening, yer honour.’
‘Good-evening’—shortly. Wyndham is deep in thought, and by no means in a good temper. He would have brushed by her; but, armed with a garden rake, a spade, and a huge clipper, Mrs. Denis is not lightly to be dealt with.
‘Askin’ yer pardon, sir, ’tis just a word I want wid ye. Miss Ella, the crathure—ye’re going to let her stay here, aren’t ye?’
‘Yes,’ says Wyndham gruffly.
‘The saints be praised!’ says Mrs. Denis piously. ‘Fegs! ’tis a good heart ye have, sir, in spite of it all.’ What the ‘all’ is she leaves beautifully indefinite. ‘An’, sure, ’twas meself tould Denis—that ould raprobate of a fool o’ mine—that ye’d niver turn her out. “For where would she go,” says I, “if he did—a born lady like her?” An’ there’s plenty o’ room for her here, sir.’
‘I dare say,’ says Wyndham, feeling furious. ‘But for all that, I can’t have all the young women in Ireland staying in my house just because there is room for them.’
‘God forbid, yer honour! All thim young women would play the very divil wid the Cottage, an’’—thoughtfully—‘aitch other too. Wan at a time, sir, is a good plan, an’ I’m glad it’s Miss Ella has had the first of it.’
This remarkable speech is met by Wyndham with a stony glare that goes lightly over the head of Mrs. Denis. That worthy woman is too much elated with the news she has dragged out of him to care for glares of any sort. Childless, though always longing for a child—and especially for a daughter—Mrs. Denis’s heart had gone out at once to the pretty waif that had been cast into her life in so strange a fashion. And now she hastens back to the house to get ‘her Miss Ella a cup o’ tay, the crathure!’ and wheedle out of her all the news about the ‘masther.’
CHAPTER XXII.
‘Tell me how to bear so blandly the assuming ways of wild young people!