All the time that the others had been at dinner she had spent in thinking. She felt really sorry for having broken down and cried before Nessa. If Murtagh and Winnie had been angry with her for that, she could have understood them much better. That did deserve their contempt. "It was very hard, too," she thought, "just at the end, when they were going to get the rent and have all the happy part of taking Theresa home, that she should be separated from them, as it were, and lose her share in the pleasure." Above all, she could not bear to be thought cowardly and stupid. She liked people to be fond of her. The result of her thinking was that she determined to do her best to coax Mr. Plunkett to give them the rent. "For if I get the rent for them," she thought, "then they can't say I didn't do as much for Theresa as any one."
Consequently she was in one of her very pleasantest humors as she walked across the park, and Winnie and Murtagh wondered at her as she talked brightly about what she was going to say to Mr. Plunkett, sketched little scenes of Mrs. Daly's delight when Theresa was given back to her, and dwelt pleasantly upon how "jolly" they would all feel afterwards for having saved Theresa.
But though they wondered, they were certainly cheered, and felt far bolder when they arrived at the Red House than they had done for some time past.
"We want to see Mr. Plunkett, please, Biddy," said Rose to the servant, who was hanging out clothes to dry.
"Faix it's roses at Christmas-time we'll be havin' soon," returned Biddy, with a good-natured laugh. But the children were in no mood for joking, so they walked soberly up to the door, while Rose asked what room he was in.
"Ye're joking, Miss Rose," replied Biddy. "You wouldn't be goin' in to him in rale earnest. Why, it's like a mad bull in a china shop he is to-day, with the polis comin' in an' out, and one thing an' another."
"But we must go in," said Murtagh. "We have some business that we must speak to him about."
"Sure, Mr. Murtagh, honey, is it going to be married ye are, and come for him to draw out the dockiments?" answered Biddy, laughing outright.
"Stop being a donkey, Biddy," said Winnie, decidedly, "and tell us where he is."
"Where is he? By St. Patrick, if he was where I'd like him to be, it's the fardest end o' the pole from Biddy Connolly."