“Oh, bless yez, they're as well and bonny as can be. Little Mike, he said he'd stand and wait till you passed by the gate, he's that took up with you, Miss Nora. You'd be concaited if you heard all he says about you.”
Nora thrust her hand into her pocket.
“Here,” she said, “is a bright halfpenny; give it to Mike, and tell him that Nora loves him very much. And now I am going home. Hannah, you'll remember my message to Andy, and please let him understand that he is not going to frighten me into doing anything I don't think right.”
CHAPTER X. — THE INVITATION.
Squire O'Shanaghgan came home in a couple of days. He entered the house in noisy fashion, and appeared to be quite cheerful. He had a great deal to say about Dublin, and talked much of his old friends during the evening that followed. Nora, however, try as she would, could never meet his eye, and she guessed, even before he told her, that his mission had been a failure. It was early the next morning that he gave her this information.
“I tried them, one and all, colleen,” he said, “and never were fellows more taken aback. 'Is it you to lose your property, O'Shanaghgan?' they said. They wouldn't believe me at first.”
“Well, father, and will they help?” said Nora.
“Bless you, they would if they could. There's not a better-natured man in the length and breadth of Ireland than Fin O'Hara; and as to John Fitzgerald, I believe he would take us all into his barrack of a house; but they can't help with money, Nora, because, bedad, they haven't got it. A man can't turn stones into money, even for his best and dearest friends.”