"Shure 'tis himself will be glad to see me, ye spalpeen! Shame on yez to insult a poor girl. Musha, is it Misther Hamilton within and ashamed to spake to his Eily!"
One more moment, then within that room in which art, and beauty, and refinement were gathered in one harmonious whole, a figure stole shyly.
It was a young girl, gaudily attired in a blue dress; a hat, encircled by a long pink feather, crowned a face that was beautiful, were it not that it was marred by its many adornments. Gilt earrings glistened in the ears, a dark curly fringe covered forehead and eyebrows, and the chin was embedded in a tawdry feather boa of a muddy hue. An excited flush lay on her cheeks as she looked at the gay crowd within, searching for the loved face.
At last a joyful recognition shone in her dark eyes, and forgetful of everything and everybody, she rushed across the polished floor to the horror-stricken artist.
"Ah, Misther Hamilton, acushla! shure it's your own Eily has found yez at last!" She caught the artist's hand in her own impulsively—"Arrah, but it's the wide world I have searched, and I've found yez at last!"
Silence had fallen on that part of the room where this little contretemps was taking place. Hamilton saw the looks of wonderment on his guests' faces change into an amused smile as the little comedy progressed.
The girl was looking earnestly at him.
"Shure, you do not forget your own Eily—the girl you made into the picthur, your colleen oge! But maybe it's the jiwils and the clothes that has changed me; it's mighty grand they make me, to be sure, but it was so you should not be ashamed of me I put them on. Arrah, shpake to me, and let me hear the sound of your voice!"
She looked pleadingly into his eyes, but he was speechless. At last by a mighty effort he turned with a sickly smile to some of his guests—
"Here is the original of 'The Queen of Connemara'—scarcely recognisable in her new clothes, is she? Why, Eily, my child," with a paternal air, "whatever brought you here to London?"