One such beholder encountered her in the narrow passage downstairs, and respectfully flattened himself against the wall to let her pass.
"It's a fine mornin', Miss Elleney," said the young man.
Elleney started, stared, and then broke into a laugh.
"It's you, is it, Pat Rooney? I didn't know ye, ye're so grand this mornin'. You do be generally all over flour—I never see you without lookin' out for flour."
"An' I never see you, Miss Elleney," responded Pat Rooney gallantly, "without bein' put in mind of another kind o' flower. Sure, you look the very same as a rose to-day."
"Not at all," laughed Elleney, blushing, but quite frank and unconcerned; "I wouldn't ask to be thought aiqual to anything so grand as that. A daisy maybe, or—"
"Elleney!" called a shrill voice from some distant region. "Elleney! We are all famished entirely. Girl alive, do ye forget it's your week for the breakfast? I never heard the like! We've been waitin' this half-hour."
"Laws," ejaculated Elleney under her breath, and with a conscience-stricken face. "I didn't forget; but sure I didn't know what o'clock it was, an' there's the eggs to boil an' all. Me cousin Juliana 'ull be murderin' me. I'm just bringin' it, Ju," she called back apprehensively. "And goodness only knows if the kettle 'ull be boilin', itself," she added in a distracted undertone, "an' I'm afther forgetting my big aperon upstairs, an' if I go an' black my best dress me a'nt 'ull be the death o' me."
"Aisy now, don't be tormentin' yourself that way," cried Pat soothingly. "Sure I'll just go along wid ye into the kitchen, an' if I don't have that kettle bilin' in next to no time my name's not Pat Rooney. It's me that's used to fires—ye'll see how I'll blow up yours for ye, miss. There now, wasn't it by the greatest good luck I looked in this mornin' to pick up my pipe that I left down below in the bakehouse? Cheer up, Miss Elleney—we'll not be keepin' them long waitin' for their breakfasts now."
Even while speaking the young baker had preceded the girl into the kitchen, possessed himself of the bellows, and blown up the fire; he now deftly dropped an entire basketful of eggs into a saucepan, and, with a large loaf in one hand and a knife in the other, began with almost incredible speed to cut off thick rounds.