It was a good-sized room, with a large window at one end and another smaller one at the side. But the curtains were not drawn before either of them, and one was open, letting the rain beat in upon the carpet. The fire had burnt low, and the fender was full of ashes and chestnut-husks. The rest of the room was so strewn with toys, books, cooking-utensils, and rubbish of every description, that there was some difficulty in distinguishing any article of furniture: only the tea-table, clean and white in the midst, stood out against the general disorder like an ark in a second deluge.
"Deed faith, it's time ye had some one to see after yez," muttered Mrs. Donegan to herself. "Where's Miss Winnie and Master Bobbo?" she added aloud.
"Gone to the garden to get some apples," answered Murtagh. "I wish they'd look sharp."
"Well, when they do come in there isn't a dress for Miss Winnie to put on. All the print dresses are gone to the wash-tub, and she soaked her old black one through and through this morning."
"Oh, well, she can dry herself all right. Don't you bother her about it and she won't bother you," replied Murtagh, good-humoredly, sitting down to the piano as he spoke, and beginning to play "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning."
"That's just the way it is with them all; there's no getting them to listen to reason; an' it isn't that they don't have frocks enough," explained poor Mrs. Donegan, in despair, "but you might just every bit as well try to keep clean pinafores on the ducks and chickens out in the yard as try to keep them tidy."
Murtagh's only answer was to crow like a cock, and then he fell into the more meditative quacking of ducks as he began an elaborate variation upon his air.
Their guest began to look just a little forlorn. After traveling for three or four days people are apt to be tired, and it did not seem to occur to any one that she might like to be shown to a room where she could rest a little and wash away the dust of her long journey. There was apparently no chair disengaged either, upon which she might sit down, so she stood leaning against the chimney-piece, while Rosie tried hurriedly to make the room tidier, and Ellie sat down upon the floor, delighted with the treasure that had been left hanging round her neck.
But Rosie had some idea of the duties of a hostess, and she soon noticed how white the girl looked.
"You look dreadfully tired," she said in a voice so gentle that Adrienne was quite surprised. "Wait a minute, here's a comfortable chair; I'll clear the music out of it." As she spoke she tipped up an arm-chair and wheeled it to the fireplace.