"We have, acushla machree, alanna—heart's best darling," said the elderly clergyman, clasping the child for one swift moment tightly in his arms. "Ah, but you are the soul of my soul," he muttered.
Tilly looked on in amazement. She began to consider all these foolish words, none of which she could understand, as a certain token that the Irish were half mad. Still it was glorious to be close to la petite Comtesse.
The train drew up at the station in that slow, drawling way in which Irish trains mostly do in out-of-the-way places, and lo and behold wherever Margot looked, she saw great bonfires and smiling faces and there, as large as life, were Phinias Maloney and the wife also of Phinias Maloney, and their two big "childer" and the infant who one moment howled, and the next screeched with delight.
"He really—he really came out of a cabbage leaf," said Margot. "He wasn't hatched as lots them are here. The old-youngs are hatched so often they are tired of the job. Oh, I must go and speak to that darling baby! Uncle Jacko, hold Till's hand, I'll be back in a minute."
Oh, but weren't the Maloneys glad—just beside themselves with joy—at the thought of the pushkeen coming back to them again!
"Ah, then,'tis yez that are welcome!" said Annie Maloney. "Childer, spake to her beautiful mightiness, drop your curtsies as I taught ye. There no, hould yezselves back. Ah, then, my push-keen lamb, it's me that is glad to see ye. It's the heart hunger I had when ye left, and long life to ye and to Mishter Mansfield, who has turned into a beautiful gent, for all that he war but a farmer's son. It was me that thought of the bonfires; do ye see them ablazing to the right of ye and the left of ye, little missie asthore?"
"I do, I do! It was lovely of you, Annie," said Margot, and she kissed the young woman, who whispered to her back somewhat shyly,
"Is that child to 'himself'?"
Margot burst into one of her ringing laughs.