“Why, brother, whatever is the matter! Such an uproar—”
But her sentence was never finished. Bonny’s gaze, distracted from the colonel to his sister, glued itself to the lady’s face, while the perplexity in the blue eyes changed to delight. With a seraphic smile upon her dainty lips, a smile that would have made her recognizable anywhere, under any disguise, the little creature propelled herself from Glory’s arms to the outstretched arms of Miss Laura, shrilling her familiar announcement:
“Bonny come! Bonny come!”
How can the scene be best explained, how best described? Maybe in words of honest Timothy Dowd himself; who, somewhat later, returning to the Queen Anne cottage, called the entire Fogarty family about him and announced to the assembled household:
“Well, sirs! Ye could knock me down with a feather!” after which he sank into profound silence.
“Huh! And is that what ye’re wantin’ of us, is it? Well, you never had sense,” remarked Mary, turning away indignantly.
Thus roused, the railroader repeated:
“Sure, an’ ye could. A feather’d do it, an’ easy. But sit down, woman. Sit down as I bid ye, an’ hear the most wonderful, marvelous tale a body ever heard this side old Ireland. Faith, I wish my tongue was twicet as long, an’ I knew better how to choose the beginnin’ from the end of me story, or the middle from any one. But sit down, sit down, lass, an’ bid your seven onruly gossoons to keep the peace for onct, while I tell ye a story beats all the fairy ones ever dreamed. But–where to begin!”
“Huh! I’ll give you a start,” answered Mrs. Fogarty, impatiently. “You went from here: now go on with your tale.”
“I went from here,” began Timothy, obediently, and glad of even this small aid in his task. “I went from here an’ I follyed the three of ’em, monkey an’ man an’ girl—”