Nora said nothing; having attended to her mother's comforts, she left the room. She went out into the sunshine. In her hand she carried the two books. Her first intention was to take them down to one end of the dilapidated garden and read them steadily. She was rather pleased than otherwise at her mother's sudden and unlooked-for solicitude with regard to her education. She thought it would be pleasant to learn even under her mother's rather peculiar method of tutelage; but, as she stood on the terrace looking across the exquisite summer scene, two of the dogs, Creena and Cushla, came into view. They rushed up to Nora with cries and barks of welcome. Down went the books on the gravel, and off ran the Irish girl, followed by the two barking dogs. A few moments later she was down on the shore. She had run out without her hat or parasol. What did that matter? The winds and sea-breezes had long ago taken their own sweet will on Nora's Irish complexion; they could not tan skin like hers, and had given up trying; they could only bring brighter roses into her cheeks and more sweetness into her dark-blue eyes. She forgot her troubles, as most Irish girls will when anything calls off their attention, and ran races with the dogs up and down the shore. Nora was laughing, and the dogs were barking and gamboling round her, when the stunted form of Hannah Croneen was seen approaching. Hannah wore her bedgown and her short blue serge petticoat; her legs and feet were bare; the breezes had caught up her short gray locks, and were tossing them wildly about. She looked very elfin and queer as she approached the girl.
“Why, then, Miss Nora, it's a word I want with you, a-colleen.”
“Yes—what is it, Hannah?” answered Nora. She dropped her hands to her sides and turned her laughing, radiant face upon the little woman.
“Ah, then, it's a sight for sore eyes you are, Miss Nora. Why, it is a beauty you are, Miss Nora honey, and hondsomer and hondsomer you gets every time I see yez. It's the truth I'm a-telling yez, Miss Nora; it's the honest truth.”
“I hope it is, Hannah, for it is very pleasant hearing,” answered Nora. “Do I really get handsomer and handsomer? I must be a beauty like my grandmother.”
“Ah, she was a lady to worship,” replied Hannah, dropping a courtesy to the memory; “such ways as she had, and her eyes as blue and dark as the blessed night when the moon's at the full, just for all the world like your very own. Why, you're the mortal image of her; not a doubt of it, miss, not a doubt of it. But there, I want to say a word to yez, and we need not spend time talking about nothing but mere looks. Looks is passing, miss; they goes by and leaves yez withered up, and there are other things to think of this blessed morning.”
“To be sure,” answered Nora.
“And it's I that forgot to wish yez the top of the morning,” continued the little woman. “I hear the masther and Masther Terry has gone to foreign parts—is it true, miss?”
“It is not true of my father,” replied Nora; “he has only gone to Dublin.”
“Ah, bless him! he's one in a thousand, is the Squire,” said Hannah. “But what about the young masther, him with the handsome face and the ways?—aye, but he aint got your nice, bonny Irish ways, Miss Nora—no, that he aint.”