"Such an evening!" said Mrs. Quinn as she closed the door behind the last guest. "And who'd have ever thought of it at six o'clock and you, Matty, with your elbow out of your sleeve! Well, well, I guess those good folks don't mind a thing like that!"
"Mother--look!" Sheila had gone to the roses and had leaned over them to whisper good-night into the fragrant petals. And there, hidden among the leaves, she had found a small envelope addressed to "Miss Sheila Quinn."
She opened it quickly. "Oh, Mumsey!" she cried. For before her amazed eyes she unfolded a check for two hundred dollars!
And with it was just one short line.
"As a small token of appreciation for Paddy's services I present this to his mistress, begging her to do with it whatever she wants most in the world."
"Mumsey--the music!" Sheila ran to the piano, which had been scarcely touched during the long winter. With ecstatic fingers she ran up and down the scale.
And Mrs. Quinn, watching her girl with happy, misty eyes, seeing in the young face a look of the father who had gone on, and the glow of the rosy dreams she had used to dream in her own girlhood, thought it the most beautiful music in the world!
CHAPTER XIX
A LETTER FROM FRANCE
"A letter for you, Miss Renée!" and Jasper laid down at Renée's elbow a square, bluish envelope with a foreign postmark.