"For Heaven's sake, don't stand gapin' there!" cried cook. "Give a body a chance, wull ye, ye omorthorn. You and yer creepy stories indade, and for sure! How let me prepare a male fit to ate for the nicest gintleman in the whole of ould Ireland."
So Maureen and the Colonel ate together, and the Colonel drank two glasses of soft delicious wine, and he insisted on Maureen having a tiny glass to keep him company; then they were off and away for Templemore.
CHAPTER XIX. THE LOVE THAT PASSETH KNOWLEDGE.
There are certain people born into the world, apparently quiet and unassuming, really modest and without any apparent self-confidence, who yet manage to rule all those with whom they come in contact. There are not many of these gracious souls, but they dawn now and then on the world and little Maureen O'Brien happened to be one of these lovely and most gracious personalities. Her agony, untold, unspeakable, when she forgot herself and gave way to what she, poor little love, thought sin of the deepest dye, has been fully described. Afterwards she saw the Face of her loving Father again, her Heavenly Father. The Good Angels came back to her, the Bad Angels departed, and she was as busy as the busiest honey-bee in making arrangements for all possible wants of those people whom she considered her own.
It was unspeakably strange how a little girl like Maureen could influence a great manly boy like Dominic, but it was much stranger how she could compel the Rector and the Colonel to follow her will. She did it with such extreme gentleness that she contrived to make both these men feel that it was their own desire, that they themselves personally had longed for this arrangement. "Dear Colonel" cheered up and clapped his hands as he discussed their foreign tour with the Rector. The Rector declared that it was the unspoken dream of his life to see these lovely places. The Colonel happened to know the very young man who could come to Templemore as locum tenens; in fact the matter was arranged from end to end before these two elderly men parted that night; and Maureen stood by, smiling gently at both, and never uttering a syllable. It was to be their idea; it was their idea. This is the fashion of the Maureens of the world.
"Dominic would of course go to Rugby; why, whatever should prevent the lad?" cried the Colonel, "when I have been panting for the Italian lakes, and to go from there on to the Riviera, and only waiting because I couldn't get a friend like yourself to come with me, old man."
"And I," replied the Rector, "have dreamed of those places full of glory, but I never thought to see them."
"You'll see them now with a vengeance," said the Colonel; "and we have no time to spare. Tom Fagan—first rate chap, Tom—can take on the duties of your parish at once. You may as well come back with me to Rathclaren when I call for you to-morrow after Maureen has gone."