“Well, I declare!” he said, as I finished playing one of Schubert’s impromptus, “it’s a long time since I heard that old piano. I got it tuned the other day on purpose for you, and you know how to knock sparks out of it, anyhow! I heard Henrietta O’Neill playing that piece once, and it didn’t sound half so well—though, I can tell you, she thinks no end of herself.”
“By-the-by, Willy, why did you stop me when I began to speak of Mr. O’Neill?”
“Oh, well, O’Neill,” I said peevishly. “But what was the harm of talking about him?”
“No harm, as far as I am concerned, but the governor hates him like poison. I believe they had some row in my grand-father’s time—I don’t know exactly what-and they never made it up since. But there’s no regular quarrel; I go to all their parties, and I think the governor rather likes Nugent and the girls.”
“What is Madam O’Neill like?”
“Oh, I get along with her first-rate,” said Willy, stretching out one of his long legs, and serenely studying the gold-embroidered clock on his sock. “But other people say she’s rather a bitter old pill; and I can tell you, she has the two girls in great order!”
I began to play as he finished speaking; but his thoughts had travelled on to my other unlucky remark at dinner, for he presently interrupted me by saying in an uncertain way—
“Oh! you know that girl we were talking of at dinner, the one you saw at the gate—Anstice Brian her name is—her mother is a bit queer in her head, and she’d be very apt to give you a start if you didn’t know her ways. She’s a harmless poor creature, but she wanders about these bright nights, and she gets into the house sometimes.”
I probably looked as alarmed as I felt, for he laughed protectingly, and, drawing his chair a little closer to mine, said reassuringly—