"Believe away!" retorted Winnie. "Nobody cares in the least what you think!"
"Winnie," said her uncle, "Mr. Plunkett is an old and respected friend of mine."
Mr. Blair so seldom spoke to one of the children that even Winnie's audacious tongue was silenced by the reproof.
"I am very sorry, Plunkett," continued Mr. Blair, "that we cannot persuade you, but still I can't help hoping that when you think the matter over, you will come round to our opinion."
"Nothing ever will persuade me," returned Mr. Plunkett, "and Murtagh's guilty conscience can best tell him the reason why."
With those words he took up his hat and left the room.
The children were very little disturbed by his opinion. Murtagh's innocence was established, and that was all they cared about. They flocked round Murtagh, and carried him off with many expressions of pleasure.
Nessa and Royal and the children spent a happy afternoon together. Frankie was better again that day, and was able to be out with them; all their troubles were over and gone—gone so completely that they even seemed not to remember them as they raced and romped upon the grass with Royal. He was a splendid dog,—big and broad-chested, but agile as Winnie herself. And he enjoyed the fun of playing. When he rolled the children over on the grass, and their peals of happy laughter shook the air, you could almost fancy he was laughing too. He sprang backwards and forwards from one child to another, his great black tail whisking about in the air; but though he rolled them over without ceremony he was thoroughly gentle; he would not have hurt them for all the world. Even little Ellie, after a first terrified rush into Nessa's arms, soon discovered that "she wasn't afraid."
They chattered and laughed all the afternoon, and fed Royal, and the ducks, and the pigeons too, who came cooing and pluming themselves, and walked about in such a dignified fuss, picking all manner of scraps out of the grass. And when, for Frankie's sake, they had to go in, though Nessa left them to rejoin Cousin Jane, they gathered round the schoolroom fire and chattered and laughed all the same, and laid plans for what they would do when they got away to Torquay with Frankie.