“Forgotten yez! Trath, miss, yez needn’t accuse me of doin’ chat which is intirely impossible. The Oirishman that hiz wance looked in yer swate face will be undher the necissity iver afther to remimber it. Sowl! thare’s wan that cyant forgit it, even in his dhrames!”
The speaker glanced significantly towards the couch. A delicious thrill passed through the bosom of the listener.
“But fwhat diz it all mane?” continued Phelim, returning to the unexplained puzzle of the transformation. “Fwhare’s the tother—the young chap, or lady, or wuman—whichsomiver she art? Didn’t yez see nothin’ av a wuman, Miss Pointdixther?”
“Yes—yes.”
“Oh! yez did. An fwhere is she now?”
“Gone away, I believe.”
“Gone away! Be japers, thin, she hasn’t remained long in the wan mind. I lift her heeur in the cyabin not tin minnits ago, takin’ aff her bonnit—that was only a man’s hat—an sittlin’ hersilf down for a stay. Gone, yez say? Sowl! I’m not sorry to hear it. That’s a young lady whose room’s betther than her company, any day in the twilmonth. She’s a dale too handy wid her shootin’-iron. Wud yez belave it, Miss Pointdixther; she prisinted a pistol widin six inches av me nose?”
“Pardieu! For what reason?”
“Fwhat rayzun? Only that I thried to hindher her from inthrudin’ into the cyabin. She got in for all that; for whin owld Zeb come back, he made no objecshun to it. She sayed she was a frind av the masther, an wanted to nurse him.”
“Indeed! Oh! it is strange—very strange!” muttered the Creole, reflectingly.