"I've a better way than that," Lady O'Gara said on a sudden impulse. She had taken Stella's cold little hand in hers, and it made a mute appeal. She was sure Stella was unhappy, poor little motherless child. The two poor children, fretting and worrying each other about nothing at all! Her comprehending, merry, pitiful gaze went from one to the other young face.
"Suppose Eileen and I walk back. You'll overtake us before we get home. You two are such quick walkers."
Eileen's lips opened as though to protest. Her face had brightened at
Terry's suggestion. She closed them again in a tight snap.
"I never can see the good of walking about wet roads," she said crossly. "It must be nice to live in a town, where there are dry pavements, and people, and shops."
A robin rained out his little song from a bough above her head, and behind the trees the sky broke up into magnificence—the sun looking from under a great dun cloud suffused with his rays, while all below him was a cool greenish bluish wash of sky, tender and delicate.
"You would not find that in a city, Eileen," Lady O'Gara said, pushing away gently Stella's cold little hand that seemed to cling to hers.
"Make her trot, Terry," she said. "Her hands are cold as little frogs, like the child's hands in Herrick's 'Grace for a Child.'
"Cold as paddocks though they be,
Still I lift them up to thee
For a benison to fall
On our meat and on us all."
She saw the sudden rush of joy to her son's face and she was a little lonely. She felt that she was no longer first with Terry.