"Oh, sir, I will attend to them most particularly," said the landlady. "What will you please to order for dinner, sir? Had not I better put the lady down a round-pointed knife? Is she dangerous with her hands?"
"Oh, no," answered Mr. Dry. "It is to herself, not to others, she is dangerous. And as for dinner, send up anything you have got, especially if it be high-flavoured and relishing, for I have but a poor appetite. I will be back in about an hour; and, in the mean time, can you tell me where in this town lives one Hugh O'Donnell, an Irishman, I believe?"
The landlady paused and considered, and then replied that she really could not tell; she knew of such a person being in the place, and believed he lived somewhere at the west of the town, but she was not by any means sure.
The moment Mr. Dry was gone, the good woman called to the cook, and ordered a very substantial dinner for the party which had just arrived; but then, putting her hand before her eyes, she stood for the space of a minute and a half in the centre of the tap-room, as if in consideration; then said, "I won't tell him anything about it: there is something strange in this affair; I am not a woman if I don't find it out." She then hurried up to the room where she had left Arrah Neil, unlocked the door, and went in.
The poor girl was leaning on the sill of the open window, gazing up and down the street. Her face was clear and bright; her beautiful blue eyes were full of intellect and fire; the look of doubt and inward thought was gone; a change had come over her, complete and extraordinary. It seemed as if she had awakened from a dream.
When the landlady entered, Arrah immediately turned from the window and advanced towards her. Then, laying her hand upon her arm, she gazed in her face for a moment so intently that the poor woman began to be alarmed.
"I am sure I recollect you," said Arrah Neil. "Have you not been here long?"
"For twenty years," replied the hostess; "and for five-and-twenty before that in the house next door, from which I married into this."
"And don't you recollect me?" asked Arrah Neil.
"No," replied the landlady, "I do not; though I think I have seen some one very like you before, but then it was a taller lady--much taller."