"Do you mean that you have wasted all those stamps, that paper, those
envelopes, on a ridiculous childish game? That you have thrown away
honest pennies on such tom-foolery?"
She proceeded to deliver a lecture on thrift which lasted throughout
breakfast. Just before Denis started for the bank, a telegram came for
Nell. Sarah brought it up to the Stronghold. She looked at Nell with
scared pity in her face.
"It's for you, miss!"
Nell seized it, tore it open, burst out laughing.
"I'm caught! It's from Moira McCarthy! Oh, I _wish_ I could catch
her!"
She crumpled it up and threw it at Denis.
Sheila Pat picked it up and studied it.
"April 1," she read thoughtfully. She smoothed the paper out with a
tender little hand, then folded it carefully, carried it to her room,
and locked it in the box where she kept such treasures as she had
brought to London with her. They were in the hall a little later, Denis
had just gone, when there was another loud double knock at the door.
Sarah came running, but Nell was before her. She opened the door; a
telegraph boy stood on the step. She took the telegram from him. "For
you this time, Sheila Pat!"
Sheila Pat took it. She looked at it.
"And 'er so little!" Sarah murmured from the background.
"Molly," said the Atom, "wouldn't you like to open it?"
"No, thank you!"
"I know it's from that Ted!" opined Nell. "Open it, Atom. The boy's
waiting to know if there's an answer!"
From the dining room issued Miss Kezia.
"A telegram? And for you, Sheila? Why do you not open it?"
Sheila Pat hesitated. Longing to see if it were by any chance another
telegram from Ireland, and determination not to let Ted Lancaster catch
her, fought within her small bosom.
"Are you afraid?" Miss Kezia said, coming forward. "I will open it for
you."
Now at the opening words of her sentence Sheila Pat's head had been
uplifted with a disgusted jerk, but as Miss Kezia finished speaking, a
sudden impish glow shone in her face, and gravely she held out the
orange envelope. Miss Kezia took it. They watched breathlessly. She
tore open the envelope, she read what was written on the form inside. A
great and triumphant satisfaction illumined the Atom's small features as
she watched the expression that overspread her aunt's countenance.
"It is, I suppose, intended to be witty," Miss Kezia observed at last.
"I consider it a vulgar and sinfully wasteful joke. Sheila, did you
know what the telegram contained?"
"I thought it was somethin' like that," the Atom said. "Please give it
to me." She turned to Nell. "There can't be two April Fools over _one_
thing, can there?"
The telegram was long; it was addressed in full to Miss Sheila Patricia
Kathleen O'Brien, and it said: "Shure and isn't it afther being the 1st
of April then, och begorra, and isn't it meself will be having the laugh
of ye entoirely at all at all, for when ye rade this, won't ye be afther
being taken in ochone acushla!"
"That telegram," said Miss Kezia, in awful tones, "cost four shillings
and eightpence to send."
Nell eyed her admiringly.
"How quickly you can add up!" she said.
A little later Molly stole guiltily away up to her room. She locked the
door, and sitting down on her bed began to tear open envelopes.
Presently to her through the keyhole came a whisper:--
"Molly O'Brien, I hear the rending of note-paper!"
Molly jumped; her face grew scarlet.
"Oh, Nell! I!--I--"
Through the keyhole there was a ripple of triumphant laughter. Molly
stood, red, and stammering futile excuses, and heard the laughter die
away down the passage.
*CHAPTER XXXV*
"Denis," said Nell, "let's!"
She turned to him; her cheeks were flushed pink, her breath came in
quick little pants between her lips.
"Right you are!"
She ran towards the door, but Ted barred her way.
"I'm a mere cautious Englishman," he said, with an uncomfortable little
laugh. "I want to remind you--"
She danced before him, her hands over her ears.
"I know it all by heart, Teddie. 'Tis mere waste of breath to tell it
me all over again. And if you died for want of breath through telling
me, I shouldn't understand any more than I do now, not if you went on
and on for ever! 'The shares,'" her laughing voice sobered, echoed his
ponderously, "'have only gone up a little. It is true that they
continue to go up, but they may never pay a high enough dividend to
enable you to return to Kilbrannan.' There, don't I know it all?"
Suddenly she dropped her hands, her lips quivered.
"I must tell them, oh, I must! Even if--if--it comes to nothing,--oh,
we must risk it, mustn't we, Denis? Sheila Pat--"
She turned and went over to the window.
Ted looked as if all the cares of the state sat upon his shoulders.