But the polite Irishman was already on his feet.
"Miss Sweetheart—Miss Sweetheart!" he said, "what a blind old hedge-carpenter ye must have thought me! And you your own folks' daughter, and your father treating me like a long-lost brother, and instructin' me on hist'ry and the use of the globes!"
So we had tea, the prettiest little tea imaginable, with Mrs. Donnan going about as soft-footed as a pussy cat, and purring like one too.
Butcher Donnan looked after her with a kind of sudden bitterness. "It's all very well for her," he said; "she makes her life out of such things, but what is there for me to do? I'm about at the end of my tether!"
"Why, help her!" said I.
"Help her!" he muttered, not understanding. "Me, Butcher Donnan—why, the girl is mazed! I can't do housework!"
