Part 37 (1/2)

”A bit of a gossoon, miss, out there in the yard beyant. An' he wouldn't give me his name; but sure I know him well for a boy of the Maddens', an' one of the Coole people. His father, an' his gran'father before him, were laborers with the ould Squire.”

”Ah, indeed!” says Kit. By this time she has recovered her surprise and her composure. ”Thank you, Bridget,” she says, with quite a grandiloquent air: ”put it there, on that table. It is of no consequence, I dare say: you can go.”

Bridget--who, like all her countrywomen, dearly likes a love-affair, and is quite aware of young Mr. Desmond's pa.s.sion for her mistress--is disappointed.

”The gossoon said he was to wait for an answer, miss,” she says, insinuatingly. ”An' faix,” waxing confidential, ”I think I caught sight of the coat-tails of Misther Desmond's man outside the yard gate.”

”You should never think on such occasions, Bridget; and coat-tails are decidedly _low_,” says the younger Miss Beresford, with scathing reproof.

”They weren't very low, miss. He wore one o' them cutaway coats,” says Bridget, in an injured tone.

”You fail to grasp my meaning,” says Kit, gravely. ”However, let it pa.s.s. If this note requires an answer, you can wait in the next room until I write it.”

”Very well, miss,” says the discomfited Bridget; and Kit, finding herself in another moment alone, approaches the table, and with a beating heart takes up the note. ”It is--it _must_ be from Brian!”

The plot thickens; and _she_ has been selected to act a foremost part in it! She is to be the confidante,--the tried and trusted friend; without her aid all the fair edifice Cupid is erecting would crumble into dust.

And is there no danger, too, to be encountered,--perhaps to be met and overcome? If perchance all be discovered,--if Aunt Priscilla should suddenly be apprised of what is now going on beneath her very spectacles,--will not she,--Kit,--in her character of ”guide, philosopher, and friend” to the culprits, come in for a double share of censure? Yes, truly there are breakers ahead, and difficulties to be overcome. There is joy and a sense of heroism in this thought; and she throws up her small head defiantly, and puts out one foot with quite a martial air, as it comes to her.

Then she tears open the envelope, and reads as follows:--

”DEAR LITTLE KIT,--Owing you all the love and allegiance in the world for having helped me once, I come to you again. How am I to pa.s.s this long day without a glimpse of _her_? It is a love-sick swain who doth entreat your mercy. Does any happy thought run through your pretty head?

If so, my man is waiting for it somewhere; befriend me a second time.

”Ever yours, ”BRIAN.”

Prompt action is as the breath of her nostrils to Kit. Drawing pen and ink towards her, without a moment's hesitation, she scribbles an answer to Desmond:--

”We are going towards Ballyvoureen this afternoon, to take a pudding to old Biddy Daly: any one _chancing_ to walk there also might meet us.

Count upon me always.

”KIT.”

This Machiavellian epistle, which she fondly believes to be without its equal in the matter of depth, she folds carefully, and, enclosing it in an envelope void of address or anything (mark the astuteness of _that_!), calls to Bridget to return to her.

”You will find the boy you mentioned as being by birth a Madden,” she says, austerely, ”and give him this; and you will refrain from gossiping and idle talking with him, which is not convenient.”

It would be impossible to describe the tone in which she says this.

Bridget, much disgusted, takes the note silently, and with sufficient nervousness to make itself known. Indeed, she is so plainly impressed by Kit's eloquence that the latter's heart sings aloud for joy.

”Yes, miss,” she says, in a very subdued voice, and goes away with indignant haste, to tell cook, as she pa.s.ses through the kitchen, that ”Faix, Miss Kit might be her own gran'mother,--she is so ould an' quare in her ways.”

Kit meantime goes in search of Monica, with a mind stored with crafty arguments for the beguiling of that unconscious maiden. Hearing voices in the morning-room, she turns in there, and finds the whole family in conclave.

Miss Priscilla is speaking.

”Yes, I certainly think hospitality of some sort should be shown them,”

she is saying, with quite an excited flush on her dear old ugly face.

”We cannot, of course, do much; but afternoon tea, now, and some pleasant people to meet them,--and strawberries,--and a little stroll round the gardens--eh? And, Penelope, you used to be a great hand at claret-cup in our dear father's time; and then there is tennis. I really think, you know, it might be done.”