"You'd best come and play horses with us on the lawn," said Bridget and Norah, simultaneously.
"No, I don't want to. You'll have that awful old man there."
"Is it Mr. Flannigan you mean?" asked Bridget. "Why he's little better than a chick newly hatched—like the rest of us for that matter," she continued.
"Are you all just newly hatched?" asked Margot, looking with great curiosity at the figures of her old young aunts.
"To be sure, you've about said it," exclaimed Norah.
"Well, I'm a great deal older than you," said Margot, "so I'll let you play with the newly hatched chicken and I'll go and see Phinias Maloney."
"For the Lord's sake what does the child mean now?" exclaimed Madam, a little indignant colour flooding her cheeks.
"I mean what I say," replied Margot. "He's a dear old man—he's not a gentleman, but I like him all the better on account of that, for he's got a gentleman's heart inside his skin. I'll go and see him now while grand-dad is asleep—that is, if you don't mind, Madam."
"We'll all go, if it comes to that," said Norah. "Think of you picking up with Phinias Maloney, the roughest old farmer in the county."