What was the matter with the world?
Where was his sister-in-law Kathleen? She was up too early as a rule—fidgeting, fussing, talking, and clattering. Where were those imps, Pat and Gerry? Where were the two nice little English girls?—and, above all, where was his Colleen, his darling, the apple of his eye?
"Shall I pour out your tea for you, squire?" asked Miss Macnamara in a timid voice.
"No, I thank you," he replied; "I'll wait for my family. Help yourself; help yourself, I beg. Captain Shand, pray tackle the beef; Mr. Jones, try that kippered salmon. Nobody need wait breakfast who doesn't wish to; but I'm not hungry. I'll just step out on the terrace for a minute or two until some of my family choose to put in an appearance."
The squire opened the window as he spoke, and, stepping over the sill, was just about to call to the dogs to accompany him in his walk when a little, shabby, gray-haired woman started up almost at his feet, and raised two blazing black eyes to his face.
"Is that you, Norah?" said the squire. "And may I ask what you are doing here crouching down among the rose-bushes?"
"Nothing, yer honor; sure as I live I'm doing nothing!" said Norah. "I was only waiting to catch a sight of Miss Biddy, bless her."
"You surely did not lie in ambush in this absurd fashion to see Miss Bridget. She does not want people skulking after her like that. There, my good woman, don't look at me as if I were going to eat you. Go round to the kitchen and have some breakfast, and you shall see Miss Biddy afterward."
The squire heard fresh sounds of arrival in the breakfast room at this moment. In consequence, his voice grew more cordial.
He passed in again through the open window, and Norah quickly disappeared round by the shrubbery.