"I shall be a long while over my prayers, you see. It worries me to have you waitin'; I've got a good deal to say to God to-night."
As Nell left the room, the Atom's voice pursued her:—
"Nell, I do want to be very perlite to-night. Don't you think I'd better call him Mister God?"
CHAPTER XXXVI
It was on the 9th of May that the letters came. They came in the middle of the morning, when Nell and Molly and Sheila Pat were wrestling with their studies. It was a real wrestle to fix their minds on their work, for they knew it was mail day, and they knew that they might get an answer to their cablegram that week. The Rêve d'or shares had gone up and up. That alone was sufficient to make any study a weariness of the flesh. The wild hilarity in the atmosphere lately had been borne with a considerable amount of fortitude by Miss Kezia. There had been storms; there had been lectures; but Miss Kezia found herself making excuses for her Irish relatives. She was not given to making excuses for people, any more than she would have made them for herself; but she certainly took to reminding herself during these hilarious days of such facts connected with the O'Briens, as their youth, the peculiar circumstances attending the Rêve d'or shares, and largest excuse of all, their nationality. Had she possessed nerves, they would have suffered acutely. She wished sincerely that her relatives would not make such undesirable acquaintances. She came upon Nell in the hall one day holding a diminutive baby. It was enveloped entirely in an old shawl, and Nell told her it was Irish! Miss Kezia had no fondness for babies, but being in an amiable mood, she came forward to examine this one. But Nell drew back with all the appearance of anxious alarm.
"Do you think you'd better come near, Aunt Kezia? He's fretful—perhaps he has the measles or scarlet fever."
Miss Kezia had been very angry, and considerably alarmed. She had ordered his instant return to his parents.
"Who is he? Where does he come from? Where are his people?"
Nell had told her that the baby's name was James O'Driscoll, that she did not know where his people were, but would take him to some friends of his.
Miss Kezia had been a good deal worried. For several days she scrutinised her relatives' countenances, dreading to find them flushed or spotted. But the weeks slipped by and not a spot appeared; not one face was unduly flushed. Then the 9th of May dawned. It was a beautiful 9th of May; the hilarity of these spring days was mixed with a great restlessness; no one could settle down to anything. The letters—there were four of them—came in the middle of the morning.