Pretty soon all the Butlers were assembled in the drawing-room: Squire Butler, jovial and handsome; Mrs. Butler, still young and fresh-looking, although she was past fifty; Richard, home from Cambridge, and another Elinor, older than her sister and even prettier.
It seemed to the Motor Maids that never before had they met such charming people. Back of the house was an old-fashioned flower garden, separated from the kitchen garden by a tall hedge of fuchsias in full bloom. The rich color of the pendent blossoms made a splendid background for a group of wicker chairs and a table; hither the entire company now repaired for tea. An old lady drove up in a pony carriage and joined them, and two ruddy-faced girls wearing short skirts and stout walking boots made their appearance. They had taken the short ten-mile cut, they said, and timed themselves to arrive at four-thirty. One of them later joined Billie, Nancy and Richard Butler in a set of tennis, and played so well that Billie felt ashamed, and resolved secretly to get into practice before she played tennis again with Irish and English girls.
Mary Price and Kathleen wandered off to see the garden where roses clambered against the old walls and honeysuckle filled the air with its perfume. Along the paths, growing in profusion, were wall flowers, stock, marigolds, old-fashioned pinks, fragrant clumps of rosemary and many other flowers and herbs.
Squire Butler desired mightily to send a trap into the village for Miss Campbell and Madame Cortinas and all the luggage, too. But the girls assured him that they were due at Castle Abbey, Lord Glenarm’s place, in two days. Finally, Billie and young Richard Butler dashed back to the village in the motor car and returned with the two ladies for dinner.
As a matter of fact, this visit to Elinor’s Irish cousins was the most enjoyable episode in their entire trip. And to make it more complete, the moon came out after dinner, flooding the lawn and garden with its golden light. Then Maria quite forgot that she had intended to keep her vocation as a singer a secret and enchanted them all by singing:
“‘There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass
Or night dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentler on the spirit lies
Than tir’d eyelids upon tir’d eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And through the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.’”
CHAPTER XXIII.—THE BANSHEE OF CASTLE ABBEY.
One may become accustomed to anything, even the notion of visiting a real lord in an ancient abbey.
“We owe this to you, Maria,” cried Billie ecstatically, as the motor car climbed slowly up a wooded hill, on the summit of which stood Lord Glenarm’s Irish home.
“Remember how much I owe to you, Billie,” answered Maria. “I might never have been here now, but for you. It was the jewels you guarded so carefully for me that furnished the funds for my trip abroad and a year’s study in Paris, before I finally began singing again in opera. I feel that there is nothing too good for the Motor Maids and Miss Campbell.”