"Ah, you are looking at that old book," Mrs. Wade said, setting down her little tray, while she spread a tea-cloth on the table. "They are very dull stories. Even a convent-school girl could not extract much from them. I'm sorry it's so plain a tea. If I'd known your Ladyship was coming I'd have had some cakes made."
"This home-made bread is delicious," Lady O'Gara said. "But, won't you have some tea too?"
"No, thank you. I am not one for tea at every hour of the day like Mrs. Horridge. I take my tea when you are taking your dinner. You wouldn't like a boiled egg now? I've one little hen laying."
Her voice was coaxing. Now that Lady O'Gara could see the face in full light she thought it an innocent and gentle face. The eyes still looked upward with a kind of passion in their depths. She remembered her husband's epithet,—"ardent." It well described Mrs. Wade's eyes. Just now the ardour was for herself. She wondered why.
"Thank you so very much," she said sweetly. "I don't think I could eat an egg, though. Your tea is delicious."
"The cream is from your own Kerries. Mrs. Horridge arranged it for me that I could get the milk from your dairy. It would make any tea good. She brings me the milk twice daily, or her little lad does."
"Susan seldom ventures out, I think," Lady O'Gara said, while she sipped her tea. "I am glad you get her beyond her own gate."
"She's a scared creature. She dreads the road. Mr. Kenny gets her all she wants from the village. She comes to me across the Mount. She doesn't mind that way even in the dark, though the people about here wouldn't take it on any account. Perhaps she doesn't know the stories. Perhaps, like myself, she thinks a ghost is better company than humans sometimes."
"Ah; you are not afraid of ghosts!"
"If I was," Mrs. Wade's eyes suddenly filled with tears,—"would I be settled here? It's not thinking of the Admiral's ghost I'd be. Maybe there's some you'd welcome back from the grave, if you loved them well enough. I can't imagine any one not wanting the dead back, if so be that you loved them."