"Have they come back yet?" asked Adrienne.
"Indeed, no, Ma'am! they were in the kitchen with me this morning, getting some bits of brown cake to go off with somewhere, an' if they're back to dinner, it's as much as they'll be."
"You can't tell me where to find them, can you?" suggested Adrienne.
"Tell you where to find them!" exclaimed Mrs. Donegan. "Maybe it's up the mountains they are, or maybe up the river, or maybe across the fields, five miles away by this time. But wherever it is, ye might look for them a month o' Sundays, and never find them if ye're wanting them; and so sure as ye're not wanting them, they'll turn up fast enough, bless their hearts!"
"They live out of doors a great deal, don't they?" asked Adrienne, smiling at Mrs. Donegan's description of their proceedings.
"God bless you, yes, Ma'am. They'd never be confined with stoppin' in a house, but out and about, no matter what weather it is. They're a bit wild like, but they're the best-hearted children ever lived. But won't you sit down, Ma'am," added Mrs. Donegan, interrupting herself to set a chair near the table.
"If I stay, may I help you?" asked Adrienne, attracted to the free-spoken old woman, and very willing to stay and talk to her. "I can tuyauter these frills. I don't know what that word is in English."
She took up a pair of gauffering tongs as she spoke, and Mrs. Donegan looked amused at the notion of her help.
"Sure, you don't know anything about such work, an' it's not so easy as it looks. But you may try if you like, Miss," she added good-humoredly.
Adrienne, all unconscious of the greatness of the concession, laid her hat on one side, and in another minute was sitting gauffering pillow-case frills in so business-like a manner that Mrs. Donegan exclaimed, after a minute or two: