“You have the rarest faculty for saying insolent things,” says she.
“Faith, it’s a poor one in comparison with yours!” says I, testily enough.
She coloured up to the eyes at that. Egad, she had no liking for such plain talk! But she stared at me again and then at my foot, which was at that moment exceeding painful.
“Can I do aught to relieve you?” she says.
“I wish you could,” says I. “But you can’t, and so there’s an end on’t.”
“Oh,” she says, bridling, “if you don’t wish to talk with me——” and she drew herself away. But after a time she looked round at me again.
“Will they destroy the old house?” she says.
“I don’t know, cousin,” says I. “They seem to have given over firing at it, but these two shots will have knocked some lath and plaster about.”
She looked at my foot which I was dipping in the water again.
“What a misfortune!” she says. “I cannot abide this idleness. It irks me to sit here, doing naught, as if we were rats in a cage.”