“I never could guess right, Flynn.”
“Try.”
“Well, little Mrs Armstrong.”
“Nonsense, man! Why, she’s nursin’ her old father in England, I s’pose.”
“Miss Robinson, then?”
“H’m! You might as well say the Prime Minister. How d’ee s’pose the Portsmuth Institute could git along widout her? No, it’s our friend Mrs Drew!”
“What! The wife o’ the reverend gentleman as came out with us in the troop-ship?”
“That same—though she’s no longer the wife of the riverend gintleman, for he’s dead—good man,” said Flynn, in a sad voice.
“I’m grieved to hear that, for he was a good man. And the pretty daughter, what of her?”
“That’s more nor I can tell ye, boy. Sometimes her mother brings her to the hospital to let her see how they manage, but I fancy she thinks her too young yet to go in for sitch work by hersilf. Anyhow I’ve seen her only now an’ then; but the poor widdy comes rig’lar—though I do belave she does it widout pay. The husband died of a flyer caught in the hospital a good while since. They say that lots o’ young fellows are afther the daughter, for though the Drews are as poor as church rats, she’s got such a swate purty face, and such innocent ways wid her, that I’d try for her mesilf av it wasn’t that I’ve swore niver to forsake me owld grandmother.”