“Where is he, at all at all?” said Nelly, her cheeks as red as roses between the heat and the excitement she was in; “some trick he’s after playing off on us! We’ll find him above at the house, never fear! And to say he lepped the wall, and never stirred a stone off it!”
The wall was just made of loose stones, laid one upon another without mortar. Cattle or sheep could knock a gap through them, ready.
The sisters looked at one another. Nelly turned white.
“Sure, Jim’s always souple,” said Christina, so quietly that you’d never imagine she had a hair turned on her; “but now, let you make no delay, only turn back to Mr. Heffernan, not to be leaving him there with no one only himself ... sure that’s no right way to be going on! Have manners, child dear!”
And to herself, Christina was saying, “To think she never took notice of the breast-pin, and he with it in his tie!” for they were close enough to see it; anyway, that pin sparkled in the sun. “I wonder does she remember giving it to him, at all!”
“Let you come back with me, Chris!” said Nelly, coaxing her; as if she was turning shy with Mickey, all of a sudden.
“What nonsense is this to be going on with?” said Christina a bit short. But still in all, she went. She scarce ever could refuse Nelly anything that she had the giving of.
And wasn’t it a small thing to do, to walk down a piece to meet old Heffernan, compared to what Christina was after making up her mind to?
She was going to give Jim up! I mean, to give up thinking about him; for the bitterest part of the thing was, that she had nothing else to give up! Why would she come between Jim and what he wanted so much?
“... and Nelly!” he had said; “write me about everything that’s going on about the place ... and Nelly!”