“I have been in New York,” interposed the young lady.
Here was a bridge for thought-travel. Here was a market for the disposal of mutual mental wares.
“Did you like it?” he asked.
“Like it!” she exclaimed enthusiastically. “Who could dislike it? It is the most charming city, perhaps excepting Paris, that I have ever lived in. And how are Fifth Avenue and Broadway, and the ash-boxes?” she added with a ringing laugh.
Doaty made another stop, and no earthly inducement would stir him until he so willed it himself. His fair mistress relinquished the idea and the reins, and, stepping from the vehicle, clambered, with the assistance of Redmond, to a moss-grown bank, from which she pointed out some objects of special interest in the scenery.
“That is Billy Doyle’s cottage at Shinnagh, down far in the valley by the edge of the lake. See the amber thatch glowing in the sunlight, and the red flag. That flag shows that poor Mr. Fenler is on the lake fishing.”
“Who is poor Mr. Fenler?” asked Phil.
“He is a man who was a great merchant in Dublin, but who lost all his property, and his wife and all his children. He saved as much from the wreck as enabled him to purchase one-half of that cottage—the slated half—and to support himself. He came here seven years ago, having made a vow never to leave the valley again.”
“And has he kept it?”
“Religiously. He goes nowhere, and spends his whole time in fishing. Do you see that golden strand at the head of the lake?”