“Do not ask me,” said Nora. “Do not ask me. I have done what I wanted to do, and I am thankful.”
“And you won't really tell me?”
“No, I won't. I cannot ever. There is more to attend to, Molly; you and I have got to go to Slieve Nagorna immediately after breakfast.”
Molly did not ask anything further.
“I brought your hot water,” she said. “You do not want any of the grand English servants to see you look like this.”
“What a dear old thing you are!” said Nora. “I am so grateful to you.”
She got up, took off her clothes, indulged in a hot bath, and came down to breakfast looking exactly as if she had spent an ordinary night. Mrs. O'Shanaghgan was a little more fretful than ever, and told Nora that her conduct was making her mother quite ridiculous in the neighborhood.
“I met those remarkably nice people, the Setons of Seton Court, yesterday,” said Mrs. O'Shanaghgan—“charming English people—and they asked me if it was really true that my husband, the owner of Castle O'Shanaghgan, was sleeping in a barn.”
“And what did you answer, mother?” asked Nora, her dark-blue eyes bright with sudden fun.
“Well, my dear, I made the best of it. I could not deny such a patent fact. I said that the eccentricities of Irish squires were proverbial. But you can imagine, my dear Nora, my mortification as I had to make this admission. If this sort of thing goes on I shall ask your uncle to let the place, and allow us all to live in England.”