"The O'Briens," excessively grown-upedly, "don't hate each other so
easily, Nell."
When the Atom came back after tea she was very quiet. Nell wondered if
she were tired; she answered all questions as to her afternoon's
enjoyment in her soft little voice that gave her curt sentences such a
quaintness, but she originated no remark of her own. An hour after she
had gone to bed Nell went into her room and peeped at her. She lay
wide-eyed, thoughtful. A little after that she appeared suddenly in her
night-gown at the door of the Stronghold.
"Hulloa, Atom!" Denis seized her and swung her up; her arms went round
his neck.
"Denis," the strenuous little voice sounded as if it were near breaking,
"I must go next door, please."
"Now?"
"Yes."
"But you're in your nightie, old girl! What do you want to go for?"
"It's a private reason." Her arms clung tighter; she pressed her cheek
against his. Nell met the great eyes looking over his shoulder, and
went up to her gently.
"Can't you wait till to-morrow, Atom?"
"Why, you'll have to," put in Molly. "If it's Stewart you want, he'll
be in bed."
"I must go now, Denis; please take me now."
"We can wrap her up," said soft-hearted Denis.
The arms round his neck gave a little spasmodic squeeze.
"Thank y-you," said the Atom.
Laughing, he wrapped her in a great coat of his and a blanket, and
carried her down the steps and in next door.
Mrs. Barclay was a good deal surprised to see them. Denis put the Atom
down, and she stood shivering, her small white face peering with a queer
intensity from out the blanket.
"Stewart, my dear? Well, I am afraid he is in bed--"
"Please may I go up to him?"
"Very well; come along."
"Please may I go by my _alone_?"
"Oh! Yes, dear, if you like."
"Thank you."
She turned and went up the stairs to the room Stewart had shown her that
afternoon. She knocked politely at the door, then went in. The gas was
burning dimly.
"You? Is it a fire next door?" He sat up in bed with joyful
anticipation on his face.
"No. I--I want to speak to you."
"Is the Pearl ill?"
"No." She climbed on to his bed and sat silent.
"Hurry up!"
"I--you see, I think I have been very unjust. I am sorry. I--when you
said you would rather learn your Catchykism than play cricket, was it
because of your leg?"
"Oh, don't bother! I want to go to sleep!"
"Please tell me!" the tone was not pleading, but authoritative.
"Yes, then!"
"I--I'm very sorry," quavered Sheila Pat. "I'm not mostly so nasty,"
she added extenuatingly. "I didn't think of that."
Stewart was hugging his knees up under his chin.
"You see, I kept thinking you must be a goody-goo because of that."
"You see," he said haltingly, "I--can't run quickly--or field--"
"No."
There was a pause.
"Do you think," came the quavering little voice, "you will ever be able
to like me?"
"Rather!"
"Do you like me now?"
"Course!"
"You may kiss me just once--round by that ear--if you like," said Sheila
Pat.
"I'll kiss you twice if I like!" giving her two hearty smacks.
"Oh!" said Sheila Pat. Suddenly she perked up. "I shall call you
Tommy," she said. "Stewart is like a book."
"All right."
"You see," her tone was rather uncomfortable, "I did mean--I had quite
dessided--you see, I thought I had been very nasty, and I thought you
would be very cross, and I did mean to give you--my Pearl--for a whole
week--but I don't want to now."
"I wouldn't take her. Peter'd be awful jealous, you bet!"
"So he would," joyfully. "Oh, Tommy, do let's have a pillow fight!"
So it was that the listeners downstairs, with the memory of the small
tragic figure that had left them still vividly in their minds, were
startled by a sudden uproar of cries and bumps and laughter. Denis, up
the stairs in a moment, and joining in the fray in another moment, found
a wild Sheila Pat, shining-eyed, squealing with excitement, pelting
Stewart with a pillow. He was not surprised, but Mrs. Barclay felt
somewhat bewildered.
*CHAPTER IX*
Sheila Pat came thoughtfully into the room. "Nell," she observed, "we
give Sarah a lot of extra work."
Nell looked up with an absent eye. She was trying to calculate how much
they would be able to spend on toys for their Dublin hospital this year.
They were determined not to omit their contribution to the annual
Christmas tree and festivities.
"We make our own beds," said Molly, virtuously.
"But she has to clean out this room to-day; it's cleanin' day. And
she's goin' home this evenin' to see her mother, and she walks all the
way there and back with her young man. You see, if she didn't, she'd
never be walkin' out with him at all. And she tidies up at home,
because her mother's mostly ailin', and she bathes every one of her
brothers and sisters. There now, Nell O'Brien!"
Nell flung aside paper and pencil.
"Come on, Atom, we'll turn this room out ourselves!"
"I'll go and tell Sarah." The Atom trotted contentedly from the room.
"Aunt Kezia's out!" she called back.
"How on earth do you begin?" asked Molly, looking helplessly around.
"Oh, you put everything out in the passage first of all," said Nell,
confidently, "then you tie your head up in a duster or something,
because of the dust, you know, and then you begin to sweep and fill the
room with dust. Oh, and the big things you cover over with dusting
sheets. I'll get all the things we'll want from Sarah. You go and tie
up your head."
"Oh, miss!" Sarah was in a state of horror bordering on lunacy. "You
young ladies to do my work!"
But Nell got her way in the end.
The Atom helped in a silence that was ecstatic. She pinned up her
pig-tail, and tied a clean duster round her head. Molly followed suit,
and then the supply being exhausted, Nell twisted a pale blue silk scarf
round hers, and they set to work. They brushed and brushed; silence
reigned in the Stronghold. Sheila Pat broke it to observe in a rather
breathless but deeply content voice, "We're gettin' a fine dust now!"
Denis came in with a rush. "Hulloa! I say, old man," he called over
his shoulder, "rather a choking atmosphere!"
Nell's greeting froze on her lips. Her laughing glance met a pair of
well-remembered grey eyes looking straight at her over Denis's shoulder.
She stood quite still; the hot colour dyed her face red.
"I'll go--really, O'Brien, I'd rather--another time!"
The uncomfortable murmur reached her ear; she forgot all about her
unfortunate visit--all about her sense of antagonism. She went swiftly
forward, hand outstretched, smiling charmingly.
"Please don't go! Really, we've almost finished. The dust is dying
down already."
"After manoeuvring the barricade outside successfully you've got to
stay, old man," Denis declared. "Tell us what you're doing, anyway,
Nell."
But Nell was interested to see the ruefulness in her visitor's face
change suddenly to keen amusement. She followed his look to the head of
Sheila Pat, which, adorned dusterwise, was crowned with her pig-tail
sticking straight up on top out of the duster. She gave a little laugh,
and he laughed too. She turned to Denis and explained why they were
cleaning out the room. Then Ted Lancaster astonished them all.
"I say," he burst out eagerly, "I wish you'd let me stay and lend a
hand!"
Sheila Pat, squatting on her heels in the middle of the floor, with a
short brush, looked up at him approvingly.
"Come along in and shut the door, there's a good boy!"
The good boy's eyes twinkled as he obeyed. He removed his extremely
smart coat and professed his readiness to begin.
"By the way," observed Denis, the corners of his mouth twitching
humorously, "I'd better introduce him first!"
"Oh--yes," said Nell, blushing suddenly.
Ted Lancaster bowed gravely to her and with almost deeper gravity to
Sheila Pat.
"That's another sister over there in the cupboard," Denis remarked.
"Molly's fond of cupboards."
The two boys set to work and raised a fearful dust. Nell observed
ruefully that the parts they were sweeping had been gone over once
already.