“Well, mother!” she cried gayly, flinging herself into her arms. “Here I am!—the train was awfully late. How are you, father? oh! and Aunt Jinny.”
She entered the room with her arm round her mother’s waist, kissing her between the words, over and over again. The maid came in with fresh tea, and she sank into a low chair by the fire, pulling off her gloves, and chattering.
Mrs. Ruan glanced triumphantly at her sister, and then back again at Bridget.
“Child! how you’ve grown!” she exclaimed, with a glance at the girl’s slight, erect figure and bright eyes.
“So I ought,” Bridget cried. “I’m eighteen. Eighteen! Aunt Jinny, what do you think of that? Lovely tea, mother—oh! and hot cakes!—delicious!”
Presently Mrs. Wainright rose to go. Mr. Ruan accompanied her to the front door, and his wife left the room to give an order to the maid about the luggage.
Bridget was left alone for a few minutes.
She glanced round the room, and the light went out of her eyes. She heard her father’s gruff voice in the passage downstairs. “Tell that idiot of a maid of yours to take these boxes out of the way!” he shouted irritably.
The color flamed in the girl’s cheeks. She rose from her seat, and went slowly to the fire, and knelt before it. She saw the red glow of the coals through a blinding haze of tears.
In a flash, as it seemed, the full significance of her home-coming was revealed to her.