Mr. Graydon rubbed his hands with benevolent amusement. His daughter glanced at him with a pucker between her white brows. The violet-blue eyes under curling black lashes exactly reproduced her father's, though at this moment the expressions were widely different.
"You're too easy-going, dad. You should make Johnny Maher mend the road."
Mr. Graydon dropped a rein to pull one of his daughter's silky black curls.
"You wouldn't be having me too hard on the poor fellow, and he with a sick wife and an old mother and a pack of children. Eh, little Pam?"
Pamela shook her head severely, and the red mouth, which had drooped at the corners when she was serious, parted over white teeth in a laugh fresh as a child's.
"How did the calves do wid your honour?"
"You've no conscience, dad, any more than Lord Inverbarry or Johnny Maher. You're conniving at their wrongdoing, you see."
"Maybe I am, Pam—maybe I am. Only I don't suppose it seems wrongdoing to them—at least, not to Johnny Maher, poor fellow. Inverbarry ought to know better."
They jogged along for a few minutes till there was another jolt. Simultaneously there was a crash at their feet, and Mr. Graydon pulled up with an exclamation.