‘Maybe, sister,’ she replied indifferently. ‘It is up to the Duranes’ house I must be going this morning,’ she added presently. ‘And, Honor, it is not the kelp I need watch this evening. Will I—will I ask Murdough Blake to come over, and sit with us a bit? It is not for a long time, he says—no, not for a long, long time—that he has seen you.’
Honor suddenly reddened, and a curious look of embarrassment came into her face.
‘Well, then, honey sweet, of course you can,’ she said, but in a tone of such evident reluctance that Grania could not fail to observe it.
‘What is it ails you about Murdough?’ she asked curiously. ‘It is not the first time, not the first by many, that you did not want him to come here. Is it that you think anyway ill of him? Is it, Honor? Say, is it?’ she persisted anxiously.
‘Auch! child, no. Ill? Why would I think ill of him? Tis just—auch, ’tis just—’tis nothing in life but my own foolishness—nothing in life but that. Heart of my soul! what wouldn’t I do if you asked me? and of course he can come. But, ’tis just—— Auch, ’tis laughing at me you’ll be, Grania—but you know when the fit takes me I must cough, and then the phlegm—and—and—well, ’tis shamed I am, dear, shamed outright to be sitting and spitting, you know, and a young man looking at me. That’s just it, and nothing else in life, only that!’
Grania stared at her for a second open-eyed, then she, too, reddened slightly. Such a reason would certainly never have dawned upon her mind. Modest she was—no girl more so—but she took far too sturdy and out-of-doors a view of life for any such fantastic notions of delicacy as this to trouble her—notions which could only, perhaps, lurk and grow up in such a nature as Honor’s, conventual by instinct, and now trebly, artificially sensitive from ill health. Honor’s wishes were to be respected, however, even when they were mysterious.
‘Well, indeed, sister, I never gave thought to that,’ she replied, humbly enough.
‘Auch! and why would you give thought to it? Sure, why would a young colleen like you, that’s niver known ache or sickness, think of such things, no more than the young flowers out there coming up through the rocks?’ the other answered with eager, loving tenderness. ‘And my prayer to God and the Holy Virgin is that you never may have to think of them, Grania dheelish, alannah, acushla oge machree,’ she went on coaxingly, heaping up one term of endearment upon another. She was afraid that her reason, although a perfectly true and, to her mind, a perfectly reasonable one, might somehow have offended Grania. With this idea she presently went on, having first waited long enough to regain her breath.
‘Think ill of Murdough Blake? Wisha! of Murdough Blake is it? a right brine-oge of a boy and a credit to all that owns him! A likely story that, when it is a joy to me to think of the two, him and yourself, coming and living here in the old house and I dead and gone—yes, indeed, and your little children growing up round you—my blessing and the blessing of Heaven be upon them, night and day, be they many or be they few! And if it was not the next thing to a sin, ’tis fretted and vexed I’d be to be stopping on in the way I am. What for? Only to be hindering two young creatures that’s wanting and wishing to settle down, as is only natural, and they not able to do it, and all because of me! Sure, sister dear, ’tis begging your pardon I do be often inclined to do—yes, indeed, many’s the time; only there—’tis God sends it, you know, and it can’t be different, whether or no.’
Grania’s face had run through several variations while Honor was speaking. By the time she had finished, however, her eyes were gentle and misty.