"Is that yourself?" said Pat pleasantly. He was fond of the child, as was every one in the neighbourhood, and being a fellow-sufferer from the hard-heartedness of her grandfather, who was, as has been said, his landlord, was perhaps the most violent of her champions.
Roseen's blue eyes, peering through her tangled sheaf of golden-brown curls, took a hasty and discontented survey of the small kitchen.
"Isn't Mike here?" she inquired.
"He's not, asthore, an' won't be home this hour most likely; but come in out o' the scorching sun, an' sit down on the little creepy stool. Herself will be in in a few minutes, an' maybe she'll give ye a bit o' griddle cake."
Roseen unfastened the half-door and came in, her little bare brown feet making no sound on the mud floor. She was a pretty child for all her sunburnt face and scanty unkempt attire. Poor Widow Rorke has long ceased to take pride in the fact that her husband had been the son of the richest farmer in all the countryside, and did not care to keep up appearances, all her energies being devoted to the struggle for daily bread; nevertheless, the short red flannel frock was as becoming to Roseen as any more elegant garment could have been, and when she approached the hearth and sat down on the three-legged stool by Pat's side, he breathed a blessing on her pretty face that was as admiring as it was fervent.
Crossing one shapely sunburnt leg over the other, and gazing pensively at the smouldering turf sods, she heaved a deep sigh.
"They're afther goin' out an' lavin' me," she lamented.
"Did they, asthore? Sure they had a right to have taken ye along wid them. Where are they gone to at all, alanna?"
"Me mother's after goin' to the town to buy a bit o' bread, an' Judy's streeled off with herself, goodness knows where, wid her ould pipe in her pocket. Dear knows when she'll be back; an' she bid me stop at home an' mind the fire, but I come away out o' that as soon as her back was turned."
The bright eyes glanced defiantly at the old man and then suddenly clouded over; the corners of the little mouth began to droop, and the small bare shoulders to heave.