"I wished to go out all by my alone, so I put on my things and I creeped down the stairs and out of the door—"
"Most wrong! Most naughty!" interpolated Miss Kezia, but the Atom went on unheeding.
"Sure I'll not be tellin' you anythin' I don't wish to, so it's no use askin' undesirable questions about—" a halt, a momentary quaver, "about things. This London is just houses and houses and houses and streets like—" pause for an insulting metaphor, "like twin maggots! And I got lost." She stopped abruptly.
"It is very naughty and selfish to cause so much trouble to others while you enjoy yourself roaming the streets!" said Miss Kezia.
A curious expression came into the Atom's small face—a bitter little expression that made it look oddly old for a moment.
"Go on, asthore," Nell put in. "What did you do when you were lost?"
"I walked and walked. I wouldn't ask a policeman the way, because Sarah's young man says they're a bad lot and you can't trust them. And then," her face kindled, "I came upon a cab-stand, and there was one poor horse with his nose-bag slipped down,—the strap had come loose, and he couldn't get his poor nose in at all,—and I ran across and I kissed his nose—it had a white flame—he was a bay with a hog mane—and I tried to get his bag up, but, oh, 'tis heavy they are! I tried and tried, and I gave him a handful of oats to go on with, and then Willie Riley came along—" She broke off. "Oh, Nell," she said, in a breathless little aside, "all day long I'd been hearing all these hidjous London people's voices, all shoutin'—and Willie Riley came along, and oh, he called out, 'Sure and what's wrong at all?' Oh, but 'twas grand! All day I hadn't heard it. 'Sure and what's wrong at all?' just like that."
"The horse might have bitten you. It was a most foolish and foolhardy thing to do," reprimanded Miss Kezia.
Sheila Pat stared at her in a funny little considering way, then pursued:—
"He soon put it right, and then we had a talk. Nell, he comes from Cork! And he was tellin' me all about his home—"