Here there came a ring at the bell.
“Mercy on us! who’s this?” exclaimed Miss Burke; “and me in me awful old gardening clothes!”
We heard her hastily retreat into the room opposite, and then, in a muffled voice, issue her directions.
“Say I’m not at home, Joanna, and Miss Sarsfield’s not able to see any one!”
“Good woman,” murmured Nugent.
The door was opened, and Joanna’s steadfast assertions that “all the ladies were out of home,” were reassuringly audible; but the next instant we heard Miss Mimi emerge from her refuge, and shamelessly betray her confederate.
“Don’t mind Joanna, O’Neill! Come in, come in! I never thought it was you!”
“How do you do, Miss Burke?” said O’Neill; “I am glad you are not as inhospitable as Joanna!” Here followed an apologetic giggle from Joanna, and O’Neill continued. “And how is your guest? Better, I hope.”
“Oh, the poor child! She was awfully bad yesterday; she never lifted her head from the pillow all day. I think some one was greatly disappointed when he came to inquire! But come in and see her; she’s in the drawing-room.”
O’Neill’s manner when he came in, was, I at once felt, somewhat shorn of its usual intimate devotedness, and I discerned in it a certain striving after a paternal tone. He shook my hand with a pressure and a shake of his head, that were meant to convey at once a facetious reproach and forgiving congratulation, and as soon as possible took advantage of the cover afforded to him by Miss Burke’s appropriate witticisms, and, after a word or two, left my side. Miss Mimi’s exuberant enthusiasm soon became a trifle wearying to the objects of it, and although O’Neill gallantly seconded her, I think he was as glad as either Nugent or I when the return of Mrs. Burke and Miss Bessie, and the arrival of tea, caused a diversion.