“I’ll make you help—so there,”—and with a sudden movement she swept all the books of patterns into her arms and deposited them, helter-skelter, upon her sister’s head, laughing gayly at the picture of solemn-faced Eileen with the little square books scattered all around and upon her.
“Now, Miss Sphinx,” she said, “do you think you could come down from the clouds for five minutes and discuss anything so distressingly earthy as clothes?”
Eileen’s face broke into a very sweet smile. She had not in the least intended to be indifferent, but long before Paddy commenced consulting her she had been in the middle of composing a lovely poem about mountains and streams and birds and things, and she had not really heard any of her remarks at all.
“What’s the matter, Paddy?” she asked, eyeing the scattered patterns with amusement.
“Matter!” cried Paddy, “everything’s the matter! How on earth am I to select a blouse that will go with a blue dress, a green dress, a grey dress, a hat with pansies in, and a scarlet tam-o’-shanter! I’ve been worrying with those stupid patterns for days, and instead of getting any nearer a decision, I keep on thinking of something fresh that nothing seems to go with. Now it’s your turn to worry; you ought to, you know, because Charity begins at home.”
“Why not have something in cream?” suggested Eileen; “it saves a lot of bother.”
“Yes, and what do I look like in cream, with my sallow skin? It’s all very well for you with your ivory and roses, you look well in anything. I don’t think it was at all fair for you to have everything nice while I am burdened for life with a sallow skin and a snub nose. Cream flannel would be nearly as bad as brown holland for me, and when I wear brown holland you can’t tell where the dress ends and I begin,” and the corners of Paddy’s mischievous mouth were momentarily drawn down in great disgust.
“You could wear bright-coloured ties,” suggested Eileen, “and have one of every colour you wanted.”
“Why so I could,” brightening up, “and provided I don’t always lose the colour I want at the moment of requiring it, it will save a lot of bother.”
“But you always will, you know,” said a gay masculine voice; “you’ll keep every one waiting five minutes longer than usual hunting for the required colour, and then turn up in a red tie with a green hat,” and before either of them could speak, Jack O’Hara, from the Parsonage, was coming through the window, head first, trailing his long legs after him. “I’ve just had a little practice at this sort of thing,” he ran on. “I came from Newry, with the Burtons, a whole carriage full of them, and we had a great time. The train was just going to start when I arrived, and the station master had locked their compartment, and when I asked him to let me in, he tried to put me into a smoker next door. I said, ‘No, thanks, not for Jack this journey.’ He murmured something about the Burton’s carriage being full up, and I couldn’t go in it, so I said, ‘You see if I can’t,’ and took a header through the window, right on to their laps.”