"'Indeed, then,' says Kathleen, 'don't think of the like,
For I half gave a promise to soothering Mike;
The ground that I walk on he loves, I'll be bound.'
'Faith,' says Rory, 'I'd rather love you than the ground.'
'Now, Rory, I'll cry, if you don't let me go;
Sure I dream ev'ry night that I'm hating you so!'
'Oh!' says Rory, 'that same I'm delighted to hear,
For dhrames always go by contraries, my dear.'
'Now, Rory, leave off, sir. You'll hug me no more;
That's eight times to-day, that you've kissed me before.'
'Then here goes another,' says he, 'to make sure,
For there's luck in odd numbers,' says Rory O'More."
As the last words rang out Nell flung down a sixpence.
"A Merry Christmas!"
"Shure and 'tis afther the same I'd be wishing you entirely, at all, at
all!" came the sonorous response. "Shure and 'tis the Oirish are afther
being the gradely folks on this earrth, me beautiful honour, your
leddyship!"
"You're not Irish!" shrilled out an indignant little voice.
"Och, begorra, and would yez be insulting us now, at all, at all, your
honour? Shure 'tis the Oirish we are, thin, and long may they live,
hoots toots! Ochone!"
Nell flung down a piece of holly she was wearing in her waist belt; she
flung it waveringly, overcome with mirth.
Denis shouted aloud. Of all of them the Atom alone refused to even
smile.
"I object to hypocrites," she said dignifiedly.
"I wonder how they found out we are Irish?" pondered Molly.
"I suppose it was just an odd coincidence--their singing 'Rory O'More,'
and then they found out by our brogues!" laughed Nell.
It was that same evening that, fired by "Rory O'More," they left their
toys and trooped down to the cold drawing-room and sang and played.
Sheila Pat, leaving the room for something, found Herr Schmidt on the
mat outside the door, listening.
"I lof ze music so much!" he excused himself hurriedly. "It was so
beautiful--the lovely voices--full of music! You will pardon me,
Fraeulein?"
Sheila Pat bowed.
"With the greatest pleasure. Please come in."
Later on he begged them to use his piano any time they wished.
"We _must_ finish packing the hospital toys to-night!" said Nell, and
sped up the stairs.
A few minutes later Ted came in.
"How are you, N-N-Nell?"
"Quite well, thank you, T-T-Ted."
"Sheila Pat," tweaking her pig-tail, "don't they grow straight pig-tails
in Ireland?"
"Please don't be foolish," said Sheila Pat, ramming a fur rabbit into
the box.
He looked at Nell and raised his eyebrows.
"Sheila Pat's cross still, aren't you, Atom?" Nell said.
"I'm innoyed."
"Tell me about it," he begged.
Denis glanced up from a letter he was writing, then bent his head again.
"Two wicked hypocrites came and they told stories, too. He said he was
Irish! _Irish_, was it? Sure 'twas sooner goriller-monkeys they'd be!
They sang outside, and we gave them some money. Did they think we were
unborned babies that they'd be sayin' they were Irish?"
"What a double-dyed villain!" Ted said with grave disapproval.
"I'd knew _you_ wouldn't be laughin' and thinkin' it funny." She paused
to watch Nell.
Nell was coming straight at Ted; once in front of him, she pointed a
tragic forefinger first at a sixpence that dangled on his watch-chain,
and then at a spray of holly in his button-hole.
He gazed back at her amusedly.
"Sheila Pat! Molly! Out on him! Oh, the thraitor! The wicked
thraitor! Don't you see? It was Ted--_Ted Lancaster_! Behold, the
holly! Behold, my ill-gotten sixpence! Mine own familiar friend! What
shall we do to him? Girls, what shall we do to him?"
Sheila Pat, her face scarlet, ran at him, and tried futilely to shake
him. He seized her and swung her aloft. From her lofty perch she
scornfully attacked him. "Sure I would have thought you'd be spakin' it
better than that! _How_ old are you? O dear, what great boobies these
English boys are! Hoots toots, indeed! And who was the other
monkey-kangaroo, then?"
"Little Foster. You don't know him. Thought it looked better to have
two, and, you see, I was too shy to sing all alone! Aren't you going to
forgive me, acushlums? Och, begorra, I've been learning that 'Rory
O'More' a whole week all for your benefit!"
"Nell,"--he began presently.
"Bravo, Ted!" she interpolated.
He flushed and laughed.
"Well, Nell," he resumed, "how did you find out so quickly?"
"That gossoon," nodding at Denis. "I saw by his face. He never can keep
anything in. And to think he _knew_! And let me waste my substance on a
wicked fraud of a Ted!"
"I recognised him almost at once," observed Denis.
Nell's eye had grown suddenly absent, preoccupied with thoughts of
something else. She rose and sidled, with what she thought deep
artfulness, but which a child could have seen through, toward the
artistic pillow-case. She had caught sight of the deep emerald green
silk tie she was knitting for Ted sticking up in full view, gazing
brazenly at Ted himself, she declared.
Fortunately he was engaged just then with the Atom, so saw nothing of
Nell's transparent manoeuvring.
"Sure the very babies themselves," said Sheila Pat, earnestly, "speak it
better than that!"
"Do they, Sheila Pat? How clever the Irish must be!"
"Of course they are," said Sheila Pat.
*CHAPTER XIX*
Christmas came with a rush in the end.
"Santa Claus," said Nell, "has not a well-regulated mind. For the weeks
before Christmas he rides at a leisurely trot, looking about him,
smiling. Then suddenly he finds there isn't time for half he's got to
do, and off he gallops--over hedges of toys--ditches of sweets--up hills
of mince pies and puddings--sends us all scattering here and there on
his errands--I wonder why he always muddles it like that?"
"Perhaps the old chap's Irish," suggested Ted.
Christmas eve found her with the painting of Kate Kearney for Sarah not
finished; with Ted's tie in the same condition; with Denis's present
still unbought; with half Molly's not got yet, and innumerable little
bits and things to do. The others were in much the same case.
But all the hospital toys had been sent off, and Mrs. Jones presented
with the doll's house and other presents for Benny and Janie and Susan.
On that last day Sheila Pat went out with Sarah. (Never had Sarah
enjoyed herself so much as on these shopping expeditions, during which
sometimes a smug-faced young man of an infinite respectability met them,
nearly overcome with surprise at the strange coincidence of his being
just there while they were just there, too.)--Sheila Pat went out with
Sarah and bought Ted's present. She came home, fairly glowing and
clasping a small parcel tight in both hands.
"Oh, Nell!" she said.
Nell bundled something under her pinafore and tried to look innocent.
"What is it, Atom?"
"I've got a present for Ted--I've been lookin' and lookin'--oh, Nell!"
"Show it me."
The Atom was unwrapping the paper. Beneath was a little cardboard box;
in it lay a vividly green painted shamrock with a large diamond in the
centre. It represented a tie pin, and had cost a shilling and a
halfpenny.
For Stewart she bought two large cabbages. "Won't Peter have a lovely
Christmas dinner?" she queried ecstatically. "And he'll be so sad, you
see, with Tommy and his mother away a whole week!"
That afternoon Nell and Molly came suddenly face to face in a draper's
shop, and exactly as they did it, up came the bland shop-walker to know
what they wanted. He stared with dignified disapproval, as they stood
there and laughed and laughed. Nell wanted a charming little useless
fancy box for Molly that she had seen in the window, and Molly wanted a
little handkerchief for Nell.
"I--er--oh!" Nell laughed ridiculously and Molly turned, giggling, and
fled from the shop.
Nell made a valiant effort, "I want a little bancy fox--oh!" and she
fled after Molly.
Outside she stood and laughed helplessly. A little way farther up the
street she could see Molly, and the knowledge that she too was trying to
overcome her giggles made matters much worse.
Neither she nor Molly alluded to that meeting till after Christmas.
There was a very strict O'Brien etiquette on such matters.
On that Christmas Eve they gave pennies away recklessly to poor
children. They treated a whole family--mother two little girls, a
little boy, and a baby, all eminently clean, but hungry-faced--to a
hearty tea at a confectioner's, and presented them with a bunch of
holly, and a shilling over and beyond the tea. They bought an old man
with crutches half a pound of his favourite tobacco, because he was
gazing longingly at it in a tobacconist's window. His poor old eyes grew
very watery as he accepted it and declared with shaky fervour that "King
Edward himself couldn't have given him anything he'd like better."
The account-book was thrust to the back of a drawer, and to the back of
everyone's mind as well. They locked themselves mysteriously into their
bedrooms; and there was a sudden dearth of paper and string. The whole
day was rush and hurry and bustle and fun.
In the evening Nell put her last stitch into Ted's tie.
"'Tis done! 'Tis done! Denis, go forth! Bring thy friend to our
hospitable portals and bid him enter. Guide him to this our Stronghold,
and leave him with us. Retire thyself to thy bedroom, where, secreted
beneath thy bed, thou shalt find a fair fat stocking, once a foot-ball
stocking that clad thine own unworthy leg. Take it to thy manly bosom,
creep down the stairs, and hie thee to the house of that same Ted
Lancaster, our very good friend. Crave speech with the stately
butler--"
"Halt! Is thy servant without his proper complement of brains that thou
giv'st him his directions twice over? Or is it as thy servant with
humility suspects, merely to give exercise to the pendulum within thy
coral lips?"
"Oh, hurry up!" Molly expostulated. "It's getting late!"
"I go to fetch the British Ted!" Denis vanished.
They found paper and pen, and Nell wrote, "Not to be looked into till
the morning;" then they began to collect their various presents to Ted,
and poke them well down in a foot-ball stocking of Denis's.
"Now for the trimmings!" said Nell. "The rattle--in you go! Farthing
dolly. Packet of my toffee. Six little pink jube-jube mice. ABC
bricks. India-rubber tailless donkey. _Is_ that all?"
"Pin a piece of holly on to it, Nell," adjured the Atom.
"I can't find room for the donkey. Out you come, box of bricks--oh!"
Her gasp was echoed by two other voices. K.K. pattered across to the
door, wagging her tail. There was a burst of smothered laughter; they
all knew that rap on the door. Then Nell reached out impulsively and
turned out the lamp. "Come in!"
Ted Lancaster stumbled into the room, which was lit only by the glow of
a very small fire.
"Oh!" he ejaculated. "Am I in the way?"
A wild giggle from Molly. An ecstatic thrill in the Atom's voice as she
responded, "Sure you're always welcome, my boy!"
"That's my acushlum, _I_ know! Any mistletoe about?"
"It's nice to sit in the dark sometimes, don't you think?" Nell
suggested.
"Oh--ah--yes. Are you telling stories?"
At that Nell grew helpless; she couldn't keep her gravity any longer.
"Oh, Ted--I feel so silly--I can't help it--"
"I love to hear you," he replied with funny earnestness.
"Do sit down," she said. "Oh, not there--that chair is--"
He sat on the edge of the table, which was worse.
"Oh," said Nell, "the table's rather crowded--"
"Sorry!" Down he sat on another chair, and there was a fresh giggle
from poor Molly, who was really suffering a good deal.
"Won't you come nearer the fire?" Nell suggested desperately.
"No, thanks, I'm warm. It's a beastly night--all slush and wet."
The door was pushed open.
"I say, can't find him anywhere! What on earth shall we do if we can't
get--"
"Ted's here, Denis!"
Three frantic voices gave him the information at the same moment.
"Oh, by Jove, is he? Why on earth are you sitting in the dark, eh?"
Nell could hear the laugh in his voice.
"It--it's nice, sometimes."
He punched Ted on the back. "Beg pardon--thought you were the easel,
old chap!"