She drew back from the window, and looked up, shading her eyes with her hand, to see where my voice had come from. She soon saw me, and I again motioned to her to go away. Instead, however, of doing so, she stood quite still, and throwing back her head, she fell into a sort of paroxysm of voiceless laughter, pointing at me, and rolling her head from shoulder to shoulder. Seeing that she paid no attention to what I said to her, I was on the point of leaving the window to go and look for Roche, when the French window was opened, and Roche himself came out, and with a torrent of abuse, delivered in voluble Irish, he drove her away.
“The divil’s cure to her!” I heard him say to himself as she retreated, “coming frightening the masther like that!”
“Roche,” I called, “how is the master?”
“Oh, a dale betther, miss,” he replied, coming under my window. “He was quite aisy till that owld one came with her ugly face at the window. But sure you can see him to-day before you go; he’s quite composed in his mind. He was asking for yourself just now.”
In order to be quite sure of missing most of Miss Burke’s friends, I had not ordered the trap till half-past four, and I put off going to see Uncle Dominick until about a quarter of an hour before the time I was to start. At the door of his study I met Roche coming out.
“Go in, miss; he’s getting on first-class. I’ll have a cup of tay ready for you agin you’re coming out,” he said, opening the door for me.
My uncle was standing by the window, with a book in his hand. He gave a quick glance at me as I came in.
“Yes, they are capital prints,” he said, as if in continuance of a conversation. “I am glad you have come. There is very little light left; but if you will come to the window, I will show them to you.”
He had on the long Paisley shawl dressing-gown which he had worn the night before; his figure looked immensely tall against the dull light; and his high bowed shoulders, with his head sunk on his chest, gave him the appearance of some forlorn sick raven.
“I have come to say good-bye to you for a day or two,” I said, going over to the window. “I am going over to the Burkes’.”