Chapter II: Part 2

"The little boy's gone in," Molly observed.

The Atom slipped out of the room and downstairs after Denis. Denis sat on an old up-turned wheelbarrow and studied a book on shorthand and the garden alternately.

"It's a problem that requires a good deal of thought," he observed lazily. "A back yard: Item--a patch of bare ground adorned with ten and a half blades of grass. Item--a narrow ridge of clay running parallel with the walls, in which flowers are presumably meant to grow. Item--a careless mosaic of china, etc. Item--a wheelbarrow. Item--a dustbin. Item--a diminutive Atom ready to turn it all into an elysium of sweet flowers."

"Go on with your readin'," said the Atom, refusing to smile, and valiantly beginning to pick up bits of china.

"The spirit is willing, but the brain is weak. I've come to a standstill. Hulloa, K.K.'s over the wall!"

"It was a cat makin' faces at her. If that little boy's there, he'll be very frightened."

"Why on earth should he be?"

"Oh, I know he will," with dire meaning.

Nell came dancing out into the garden with Molly.

"You're out of step, Mol! Kate Kearney, I saw you leap the wall after a poor pussy!"

She dug her toes into the wall and looked over.

"Can you give me that wicked little black bogy?" she called.

Sheila Pat turned and trotted towards the house.

Denis, on his wheelbarrow, eyed her inquiringly.

"Where are you off to? Going to exercise the Snowy-Panted Pearl?"

The Atom refused to acknowledge the question. She always did refuse when he miscalled her Pearl so rudely.

Over the wall Nell accepted a limp Kate Kearney from the little shy, fair-haired boy she had accosted, and held a conversation with him.

"Nell!" came a faint voice. "Nell! I'm caught! Oh, _Nell_!"

"Someone is calling," observed Denis, from his barrow.

Nell looked round.

"It's Molly. I thought she was here. Stewart, you hear that cry? It comes from the mouth of my sister Molly. She has a predilection for falling into slop-pails, jamming her fingers into doors-- _Coming_!" she sang out in response to a louder cry. "Good-bye, Stewart. Another time you must see my littlest sister." She dropped to the ground.

Up in Molly's room she found wild confusion, and, in the midst of it, Molly hanging out of the wardrobe.

"I'm caught, Nell! Oh, it's killing me! You might have hurried--oh!"

"Hair this time," observed Nell, untwining and pulling, while the house echoed with Molly's screams. Her hair had caught in the hooks of a blouse hanging on one of the pegs. They were safety hooks, which were one of the trials of Molly's life.

When she was freed at last, Nell looked round the room littered with boots, hats, frocks, collars.

"Whence?" she said, with a wave of her hand.

"I was looking for my thimble."

"Oh!" said Nell, expressively.

"Nell," shouted Denis, from somewhere, "come up and look at these beastly grey collars!"

She ran up to his room. The laundress was a grievance of his.

She sat on his bed and sympathised; then she observed, "Denis, tell me what this Pennington is like."

"Haven't I told you? I'll look a fine guy this evening in a dirty collar!"

"'Not half a bad chap. See him mimic old Tellbridge, his uncle--simply ripping,'" mocked she, suggestively.

He laughed. "Is that all I told you? Well, it's his chief accomplishment. He's a little chap--very dark. I say, I told you old Tellbridge apologised that his wife hadn't called, because she's abroad, didn't I? He isn't a bad old chap, only he's got such a beastly pompous manner. Pennington calls him Uncle Pom-Pom. Well, he hasn't got much of a bargain with me!" He gave a quick sigh. "I do loathe figures, Nell!" Then he laughed again. "Aunt Kezia has been talking to me about the hours she expects me to keep! 'Pon my word, I believe she thinks I'm not a day over eleven!"

At ten o'clock he came meekly home.

"Please, Aunt Kezia, I hope I'm not late?"

"I told you ten o'clock. You are punctual."

He went up to the Stronghold. He found Nell huddled over the account-book.

"Well?" she said.

"Where's Molly?"

"Just gone to bed."

"What are you doing?"

She laughed.

"I'm _trying_ to do accounts. I've been trying more or less all the evening."

"More foolish you! What's the use of accounts, anyway? If the money's gone, it's gone!"

"Yes, but still--why, you see, Denis, we--we've just got to be careful now, and I must see how our money dwindles when we never spend a farthing! And I can't get to-day right. I come threepence short."

"Put it down to stamps."

"I do my accounts honourably!"

"I'll help you. Read out items."

"Woman with baby--india rubber--watch for boy," she enumerated glibly.

"Eh? Woman with an india rubber baby and a watchful boy? How much that little lot?"

She was surreptitiously trying to tear a leaf from the account-book.

"Fivepence," she said, "and there was the hair ribbon for Molly--tenpence three farthings--that is one and threepence, three farthings, isn't it?"

He reached out a long arm and captured the book. On the leaf opposite the items for the day, dangling, half torn out, was a pencil sketch of Kate Kearney.

"I--I forgot," said Nell. "I really didn't know I was doing it!"

"You know it's forbidden in this book," sternly.

"Plase, your Honour, I'm sorry."

"You've got her expression splendidly. What had she been doing?"

"Eating Molly's hair-brush."

"Injured innocence. It's ripping, Nell! You'll be a second Rosa Bonheur yet!"

She sighed.

He glanced at her quickly.

"We'll manage it somehow, old girl!"

"So we will! I'll sit on the pavement and draw pictures in vivid chalks, as a beginning, and with my earnings--oh, up and up I'll go--"

"To the Royal Academy--a studio in South Kensington--private exhibitions--your photograph in all the papers--interviews--'The charming young genius who has taken the artist world by storm greeted me with a delightful amiability. She afforded me a glimpse of a dimple and a half. I understand that her intimate friends are treated to three whole ones--'"

"Oh, be quiet. Tell me if I've done the adding and subtracting right."

"You have! Nell, you're getting on. Meanwhile, we're threepence short. Three whole pennies!"

"Threepence is threepence."

He looked surprised.

"Are you sure?"

"I _can't_ think what it is."

"Account-book?" he suggested blandly.

On the occasion of Nell's first essay at accounts, she had worried and fought and wrestled over a missing sixpence, till Sheila Pat brilliantly bethought her of the account-book, price sixpence. Thereafter the account-book was a family joke.

"_Chestnuts_!" said Denis, in solemn tone.

"Oh, you jewel! That's it. Now I'm beautifully right." She scribbled it down.

He picked up a piece of stick, smooth and round. Nell glanced at it and laughed.

"That's Molly's! She's been sitting with a bit of hair rolled round it all the evening!"

It was the ambition of Molly's life to have waving hair like Nell's. Secretly she tried many ways to make it curl. Pencils, pens, bits of stick, all were requisitioned in guilty secrecy.

"Now tell me about your evening, Denis. Who was there?"

"Uncle Pom-Pom and Pennington, of course. Chap named Lancaster, and a queer little man--Yovil, I think his name is--all grey and black bristles. He used to be the elocution master at Pennington's school. He writes, Nell!"

"Oh, what does he write?"

"There was an article of his in last month's _Imperial_ on Coleridge. I'm going to get it. Pennington goes to his place every Tuesday--in the evening; some of the other boys who used to go to his school go too, and they talk and read and recite. No fee, you know; he just does it because he likes it--has an idea that when you've got to leave school to be a beastly clerk or something of that kind, you let your reading slip. Pennington says he's cranky on Billy S.!"

"Don't be so irreverent, Denis!"

There was a pause.

"And the other--Lancaster--what is he like?"

"Decent sort of chap, I should think. Don't know much about him--awfully quiet--hardly spoke to any one. Pennington seems to think a lot of him. He beat me at billiards, anyway. Father's got a pot of money. There, that's all I know."

Nell sat gazing into the fire. Suddenly her mouth dimpled.

"Denis, what do you think I've been doing this evening, beyond accounts?"

"Daubing."

"No. I've been looking at things from Aunt Kezia's point of view."

"Oh, lor'!" he said heavily.

"And I've come to the conclusion it's pretty hard on her to have four practically unknown relatives dumped down on her."

"We're not sacks of coals," he remonstrated, "and she offered for the post. And we efface ourselves as much as possible. And we're rather nice, you know."

"Sheila Pat went down to Herr Schmidt this evening, and requested him to take her for a walk, as she felt stifled. He did take her, and Aunt Kezia disapproved of that! Molly bet me I couldn't run up and down the stairs six times without a pause. I did it, and she disapproved of _that_. Poor Molly, trying to jump a hurdle,--two chairs arranged by me,--fell and hurt herself badly. She disapproved of _that_. Certainly she broke the chair," reflectively; "still, it seems to me Aunt Kezia disapproves of everything."

"And on top of all that you fall to pitying her! I can't rise to your heights at all, my dear." Nell, chin in hand, puckered her brow thoughtfully.

"Why, you see, from her point of view we're a horrid nuisance--"

"Oh, are we, indeed? I wish Sheila Pat could hear you! Nell, if I don't go to bed at once, you'll arrive at the point of considering our respected aunt a martyred saint, and us the bad little imps who got her her crown! Well, anyway, the imps are useful! For isn't it a grand thing to be a martyr, and aren't we helping her to be one? I'm going to bed."

"Lazy!"

"My dear, remember I am now a working man. Remember what my earnings are to go towards--" He broke off suddenly. "Nell, why can't I write a book or a play, and make my fortune?"

"You will soon."

He shook his head.

"I can see it's all rubbish almost as I write it. No, Nell, you'll have to give us back Kilbrannan, alone!"

"I won't, Denis! You know you're much too conceited to let me do it. Mustn't you have your finger in every pie? And don't speak as if it isn't ours still! It's only let--"

"So it is!" He seized her round her waist. "We'll do it together--you and I--turn 'em out--buy back all the horses--and meanwhile--meanwhile, we'll economise like a couple of German Jews!"

She looked at the jar of great golden chrysanthemums, at a large box of Fuller's chocolates he had brought them that day, and at her account-book where the money seemed to run away so mysteriously.

"Oh," quoth Denis, "it isn't the things like that that use up the money; it's the little things--copper here, copper there; 'Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves,' you know. That's sound commercial sense."

"Is it?" said Nell. "It _sounds_ all right."

"It's as right as your hand which isn't your left. I'm going to put out the lamp."

*CHAPTER IV*

"Sarah," said Sheila Pat, "who's in the drawing-room?"

"Mrs. Barclay, miss."

"Oh!" said Sheila Pat.

"Bread and butter--cakes--best milk jug--smallest spoons--that's right." Sarah's muttering ended with a sigh of relief.

"Sarah, are you very busy?"

"I've took the things up, miss, and now I've got to wash up the dinner things."

"Sarah," wheedlingly, "let me help you."

"Oh, no, miss, certainly not, and you oughter be upstairs, too."

"I don't wish to be there," with dignity settling herself on the table. "Sarah, haven't you any silver to clean now? I do like cleaning silver."

"Oh, no, miss, and you're making yourself dirty and all!"

A pause, while Sarah bustled about and the Atom watched her.

"Sarah," sternly issued the small voice, "I inquest you to give me some work _at once_!"

"Oh--oh, certingly, miss, yes, miss." Sarah, in a flurry, routed out some shining pots and pans and gave them to the Atom to dust. Sheila Pat took them and examined them carefully. There was a long silence, while Sarah made up the fire and left the room to fill the coal box. When she returned she saw the Atom sitting in stiff idleness beside her pots and pans.

"What, done them already, miss! Well, you _'ave_ been quick; and how nice and bright you've made them look, to be sure!"

The Atom fixed her with a stony eye.

"I haven't touched them," said she.

Sarah collapsed in dire confusion.

"I may wear short dresses," resumed the Atom, coldly, "my fam'ly is resisting about that,--but I am not a _baby_, Sarah Jane Jones."

Meekly and in awe, Sarah provided her with real work in the drying of cups and saucers and plates. The Atom unbent over her rubbing.

"Have you any brothers, Sarah?"

"Yes, miss, two."

"How old are they?"

"One's three and t'other four and a 'alf, miss."

"Have you any sisters, Sarah?"

"Yes, miss, three."

"How old are they?"

"Two and five and seving, miss. I'm a long way the eldest in the fambly. There's three died between me and Gladys. Father, 'e died eighteen months back, too."

"Your mother has had a lot of trouble, Sarah."

"Yes, miss, and she's mostly ailing."

"Would she like some cough medicine, do you think? You see I've got some in a bottle upstairs. I didn't use it all."

"Thank you, miss. She takes in sewing when she's able, but they pay that bad! Threepence for a blarse! Did you ever, now?"

The Atom fidgeted uncomfortably.

"I don't _quite_ know what a blarse is, Sarah, not _quite_, you see."

"Why, a bodice as don't fit, miss, just 'angs loose, and you pull it in round the waist with a belt or somethink."

"Oh!" said the Atom, recognising "blouse" now, but too polite to explain.

"No," pursued Sarah, "_I'm_ the worker of the fambly!"

The Atom eyed her gravely.

"You're not _very_ big and strong, are you?" she queried doubtfully.

"Oh, there's a lot of work in me, miss, more'n you'd think. I can go on and on, you see. Why," proudly, "lots o' times when my back's just aching all over and my legs and feet too, I can work just as well as _hever_!"

"That's spunk, Sarah," said Denis's voice round the door.

"Oh, sir! Oh, Mr. Denis!" Sarah, in her confusion, let fall a plate. "Oh!" she cried, "four pieces! Oh!" She wrung her hands.

Denis laughed.

"My fault, Sarah; put it down to me."

But the poor little maid-of-all-work had no smile left in her; her sharp little face was puckered and drawn into ludicrous lines of woe; tears stood in her pale eyes. "'Alf a crown at least!" she moaned beneath her breath. "I'd never match it under!"

Denis glanced sharply at her. "What do you mean? You talk as if you will have to pay for it!"

"So I do, sir! Ten pounds--washing done out--pay your own breakages--no beer--no followers," she rattled off glibly.

"Do you mean Aunt Kezia makes you pay for everythin' you break?" interposed the Atom.

"Yes, miss!"

There was scorn in Denis's eye; he drew a half crown from his pocket.

"I broke it, Sarah," he said gently. "Would you mind getting the new one for me? You'd bargain better than I should. Come on, Atom, everyone's asking for you."

Sheila Pat held back.

"Is the goody-goo up there, too?"

"The what?"

"The little lame boy."

"No; only his mother. Hurry up!"

They left Sarah half weeping over his magnificent kindness. Denis little knew how from that moment he was a young god--a prince in a fairy tale--a hero--to the romantic Sarah.

Up in the drawing-room a stiff little party sat nursing empty cups. In vain Mrs. Barclay tried to unstiffen it. Her eyes met Nell's, and a gleam of amusement shone in them before she discreetly veiled them beneath decorous lids.

Miss Kezia was cross. She had been taken unawares. With a queer kind of heavy hospitality, she liked to know when a visitor was coming, that she might have cakes and scones of all sorts freshly baked. To-day she had not known, and there was nothing but bread and butter and half a dozen small cakes. So she sat, stiffly disapproving, and refused to unbend.

Sheila Pat marched in, calm and cool, greeted Mrs. Barclay with her most pronounced accent, took her seat upon a chair, pulled down her skirt, and surveyed the room.

"I have a little boy not much older than you," Mrs. Barclay began pleasantly.

"Sure I'm knowin' that already."

"He wants to know you very badly."

Dead silence.

"I hope you will be friends--you and he."

The Atom wriggled on her chair; then,

"I don't care for children much, thank you; that is," her hopeless honesty impelled her, "not some children!"

Nell broke in hastily, "I have spoken to him over the wall."

"So I heard. He is rather lonely. We do not seem to know any nice young people."

Denis suggested, "_Used_ not to know?"

She laughed.

"I stand corrected. Well, I hope we shall soon know very well some very nice young people!" She rose to go.

"Will you come in to-morrow afternoon? Early--about three?"

"Oh, thanks--if Aunt--" Nell looked inquiringly at Miss Kezia.

"I have no objection."

"When will _you_ come, Miss McAlister? It is so long since you have--"

"I have not much time for gadding about, thank you."

"Mind," Mrs. Barclay turned back to the others, "you are all to come!"

Clear and distinct spoke Sheila Pat.

"'Tis engaged I'll be, Mrs. Barclay."

"What do you mean, Sheila?" demanded Miss Kezia, frowning mightily.

"I shall be helping Sarah, thank you."

"What maggot have you got into your head now?"

"'Tisn't a maggot at all," calmly. "I wish to do it. Sarah's a very good girl--for London, that is--and she has too much work entirely."

"Sheila, when I wish you to help in the menial work of the house, I will ask you to do so. Tell Mrs. Barclay at once that you will be very glad to accept her kind invitation."

The Atom heaved a most palpable sigh.

"I will come, then, thank you," she amended her aunt's words.

"Of all the rude little grumps!" Molly attacked her later on.

"I don't care! I do erject to goody-goos!"

"Who is a goody-goo?"

"Why, that silly little Stewart, of course."

"How do you know?"

"Know, is it?" scoffed the Atom. "Hasn't he got big blue eyes and fair hair and a lame leg? Sure I know the sort!" her pig-tail jerking angrily. "And I just can't bear them, Molly O'Brien!"

"I don't see how you can tell. Denis has blue eyes--"

"Oh, _Denis_!" in a tone of strong contempt for Molly's lack of understanding. "There are eyes and eyes!"

*CHAPTER V*

"Is my pig-tail quite tidy, Nell?"

"There isn't a hair out of place, Sheila Pat. Atom, do let me do your hair nicely just for once."

"I prefer a pig-tail, thank you."

Nell disappeared into the wardrobe in search of a skirt. When she emerged she stared incredulously at the Atom.

Sheila Pat was wriggling her head into a pink cotton frock.

"What on _earth_ are you putting that on for?"

"I prefer it to that," with a nod at a loose white cashmere frock lying on the bed.

"Are you mad, Sheila Pat? Why, it's November. Where did you dig it up from?"

"One of the trunks. Will you hook it, please, Nell?"

"Indeed, I won't. Take it off at once. Don't be so silly."

"I'm never cold. Do let me wear it, Nell." Sheila Pat laid her delicate little face wheedlingly against Nell's arm. "Do let me."

"I can't, asthore. You'd catch cold."

When the Atom indulged in her rare coaxing she was hard to resist.

"I'll put my coat on, too, Nell!"

But Nell was firm.

"No, Sheila Pat. And why do you want to wear it, anyway?"

"It's just a little longer than that one. Why, I show my _knees_ in that, Nell!"

"What's it matter if you do, you goose?"

"I do not _like_ showin' my knees. And I want pertickly to look grown-up to-day."

"Why?"

"Persons," quoth Sheila Pat, austerely, "can't take liberties with grown-ups. They can't talk to them if you don't wish them to," her pronouns getting somewhat mixed.

"Whom don't you want to talk to you?"

"That little boy--Stewart."

"But why not?" Nell peered at her laughingly through her hair.

"I know him. I've got him at home in that book Mrs. Norton gave me," laboriously wriggling out of the much-desired cotton frock. "He saves up all his pocket money in a money box and buys himself a new coat with it. And he'd sooner learn his Catchykism than play cricket. I know him!"

"Well," said Nell, tying on her hair ribbon, "of all the nasty little hard-hearted wretches you're the worst!"

"Oh, I'm very sorry he's lame," with belated consideration, "but I _won't_ have him talk to me!"

"I don't believe he's a bit goody, poor little chap, and, anyway, why should he want to talk to you?"

This aspect of the case had not struck Sheila Pat. She considered it as she pulled on the cashmere frock.

"Amn't I Irish, then?" she decided gloomily. "Of course he'll want to talk to me."

"I'm going to see how Molly's getting on," Nell said.

In Molly's room chaos greeted her. On the floor stood a drawer, its contents scattered everywhere. The bed was strewn with blouses, hats, a pair of shoes, collars, while Molly herself, red-faced, dishevelled, attired in skirt and petticoat-bodice, was wildly turning out another drawer.

"Ready, Mol?" inquired Nell, blandly.

"Oh, don't, Nell! I can't help it! I _can't_ find my grey blouse--the one with the white piping--I've hunted _everywhere_!"

"In the box?"

"N-no! I forgot!" making a dash at the dress basket. "Oh, don't laugh, Nell. I looked _everywhere_ else!"

"Of course you did, when we decided to keep all our nicer blouses in there! Do hurry up. Here, I'd better do you up now. Fancy all this fuss just to go next door! I was going in my blue flannel that I had on this morning, but Aunt Kezia gave such stringent orders. Isn't it absurd?"

"Ridiculous. Oh, you're pinching a bit of neck in!"

Nell, at the door, looked back.

"Sure you've got everything? Your hair ribbon?"

"Yes, everything."

When Nell and the Atom were ready they went back to Molly's room. Worse chaos than before greeted them. Molly was crawling under the bed.

"I've lost one of my shoes! Oh, I'm _so_ hot! And now I suppose my nose will get red!"

The Atom, wise beyond her years, found the shoe in a hat box, and they sallied forth.

"Thank goodness, we're not needing hats and things," sighed Nell, "or we'd never start at all!"

"_Nell_," on the next-door doorstep came an agonised whisper from Molly, "I've forgotten my waist belt!"

In the drawing-room Sheila Pat ensconced herself behind a table, and kept a wary eye on Stewart. Presently his mother sent him across to her. He came and stood in front of her; the Atom gazed over his head.

Nell caught her eye and frowned meaningly.

"Sure, thin, haven't you a tongue at all?" Sheila Pat obediently opened the conversation.

"Y-yes."

"Why aren't ye usin' it, thin?"

"I--I--don't know."

"Well!" said Sheila Pat.

The boy's fair little face flushed scarlet.

"I--I've got a rabbit!" he burst out desperately.

"Um! what colour is it?"

"Fawn and white. Come and look at him."

Sheila Pat hesitated. Longing to see the rabbit fought with disinclination to be alone with Stewart.

"If you'll promise not to talk goody, I'll come," she said cautiously. Suddenly he changed; he turned on her a small, passionate face.

"I don't want you--you little beast!"

Sheila Pat gasped, and grew slowly red.

"You are very rude," she said with tremulous dignity.

"I don't care if I am! D'you think you're the queen or what? _I_ don't want to speak to you. I can't bear you!"

He limped away to the other end of the room.

Sheila Pat sat very still and quiet for a while, then she rose and went after him.

"I think, perhaps, I wasn't _very_ perlite," she said stiffly.

"Come and see my rabbit," he rejoined.

Sheila Pat went with alacrity; she was reflecting satisfiedly that the goody-goo little boy of her imaginings would never have called her "a little beast." Still she was not completely reassured. Together they examined the rabbit, and the Atom told him all about her Pearl, and nothing "goody-gooish" appeared about him. But as they went back to the house for tea, she sounded him cautiously.

"Are you fond of cricket?" keeping a stern eye on his face while she awaited his answer.

He hesitated.

"No," he said.

"_I knew it!_"

"Awful clever of you!" he muttered sarcastically.

"I s'pose," she went on as they reached the door, "you'd sooner be at your Catchykism now than cricket?"

"Yes," he said.

"I knew it!" gasped the Atom, and fled into the house before him.

From a far corner she presently accosted her hostess.

"Is that a silk _blouse_ you're wearin', Mrs. Barclay?"

"Yes, my dear."

"Did you give more than threepence for it?"

"Sheila Pat!" stammered Molly.

"A little!" Mrs. Barclay's fair little faded face was vividly amused.

"I'm glad you did," with grave approval. "But Sarah's mother only gets threepence for the ones she makes, and she's always ailin', with a large fam'ly of babies and her husband dead and three more dead between Sarah and the next one."

"Who is Sarah?"

"She's just the little maid at Aunt Kezia's. She's a real good worker--for a Londoner, of course, I'm meanin'!"

"And her mother makes blouses?"

"Yes, and only threepence for them, but perhaps they wouldn't be silk."

"No, they wouldn't be silk, but it is shocking to hear how badly they pay for such work."

"Is it at sales?" Nell queried, looking very wise.

Mrs. Barclay smiled.

"Oh, no, my dear. The big shops and wholesale places buy hundreds of blouses that they sell off cheap, and that is what they pay for the making of them. What is that noise?" she broke off.

"It's rats!" opined Stewart, shyly.

But it was Kate Kearney scratching at the door. When she was let in she came, wriggling and wagging, lifting great pathetic eyes to the faces of her own people.

"You bad little K.K.," laughed Nell. "What door did you get in at, I wonder?"

Kate Kearney trotted sedately over to the Atom's corner, and Stewart followed her with a piece of cake.

"Mind she doesn't bite!" jeered the Atom, rudely.

He flushed, but did not answer. He gave K.K. two pieces of cake, then turned politely to Sheila Pat:--

"Would you like to give her some?"

He held out the cake.

His politeness--to her a sure and distasteful sign of goodyness--riled the stormy Atom past bearing.

"Is it _afraid_ you are?" she cried scornfully.

He raised his arm with a sudden fierce gesture and flung the cake straight into her face. It bounced off her small nose and lit with a thud on a chair. In silence they glared at each other for a minute; then he turned to Kate Kearney, thrust his hand right into her protesting mouth, and walked off.

Sheila Pat sat trembling on her chair. Twice that afternoon she had been insulted, and by the goody-goo!

During the leave-takings Sheila Pat and Stewart coldly ignored each other's existence.

In the hall at No. 35 wrath awaited them in the shape of Miss Kezia, who had just returned home from some shopping. She faced them dramatically, her tall, thin figure drawn to its full height.

"You mean to tell me that you left _my_ house, and made an afternoon call on a friend of _mine_--like _that_?" she cried, pointing a long and disapproving forefinger at her nieces.

Molly clapped terrified hands to her waist.

Through Nell's mind there darted two lines of one of Denis's nonsense verses:--

"She stood, a tall, and bony queen,
And eyed her subjects very keen."

"What's wrong with us at all?" demanded the Atom, indignantly.

"No hats! No coats! No gloves! House-shoes--"

"Ought we to have put on our outdoor things just to go next door?" exclaimed Nell, opening her eyes wide.

"Of course you ought! It is most reprehensible! You are not in the wilds now! No one thinks of going into the street in London without being properly clothed--"

Nell almost chanted aloud:--

"'Her tongue it wagged, her tongue it wogged,
Her subjects then she up and flogged!'"

"Eileen," Miss Kezia broke off sharply, "don't look so idiotic! You look as if you think it is funny!"

"Do I, aunt?" said Nell, meekly.

"I cannot think how you, at least, did not know better," pursued her aunt.

"You see at home we are as often without hats and things as with them."

"Well, please to remember you are in London now!"

Miss Kezia turned and marched up the stairs.

"'The Queen turned tail and up she went,
Her subjects then their clothes did rent!'"

chuckled Nell, and sank down laughing on to a hall chair.

The Atom disappeared in the direction of her Pearl. It was a cherished conviction, on her part (and on no one else's), that the Pearl moped in her absence.

"Where's that boy Denis, I wonder?" Nell ran up stairs two at a time.

In the Stronghold she found a torn slip of paper on the table: "Off to Lancaster's to dine. Who sneaked my nail-brush?"

"Molly, was it you?"

"Oh, yes, I meant to put it back. Mine tumbled into the slop-pail full of dirty water."

Nell wandered into Denis's room.

"Just like Molly's, only it's masculine chaos instead of feminine!" She laughed softly, and began to tidy up. When Miss Kezia heard of his absence she drew down her long upper lip.

"Who is this Mr. Lancaster?"

"A friend of Pennington's--"

"_Mr._ Pennington, if you please. Is that all you know about him, Eileen?"

"Well," said Nell, demurely, "'decent sort of chap, I should think ... awfully quiet ... father's got a pot of money--'"

"Eileen O'Brien, how dare you speak vulgar jargon like that to me!"

"Me, aunt?" with injured innocence. "I was only quoting Denis."

"Then kindly do so no more. I object strongly to the tendency of the modern girl to use slangy, slipshod, vulgar English. I will have none of it in my house.

"I hope Denis will not come home late," she pursued. "I do not like his going out in this way--without my permission."

"He isn't a baby, Aunt Kezia! And, anyway, you were out this afternoon."

"Some boy of whom I know nothing--"

Nell interrupted impatiently, "He's a friend of Mr. Tellbridge's! Denis met him there."

"Why didn't you explain that before? Of course Mr. Tellbridge would have no one--Sheila, are you feeding that dog again?"

"Yes, Aunt Kezia."

"Then leave the room at once! You really are a most tiresome little girl!"

The Atom arose and walked from the room. It was her way of obtaining release when she considered a meal had lasted sufficiently long.

"I will not have late hours kept in my house," said Miss Kezia, with a final snap of her lips.

When ten o'clock came and went without bringing Denis, Nell began to grow anxious. Half-past ten was Miss Kezia's hour for going to bed. At twenty-eight minutes past ten she "locked up." She never varied the time by a minute, unless by special arrangement with Herr Schmidt.

Listening behind the door of the Stronghold, Nell heard her lock up as usual and retire to bed. She slipped out and down into the hall. From beneath Herr Schmidt's door there came a thin line of light.

She softly unbarred the chains and lifted down the burglar bell; then she stood listening for Denis's step. Suddenly Herr Schmidt's door opened. Nell, in the darkness of the hall, gazed expectantly at the big figure outlined against the light of the sitting room. She crept back and hid behind a coat hanging on the stand. The next moment hands fumbled against her throat.

"Ur--ur," she gurgled irrepressibly. "Oh, you tickled me!"

Herr Schmidt stumbled back.

"Himmel!" he gasped. "Ach, what is it?"

Nell emerged from the coat.

"Oh, hush! Aunt Kezia will hear you. She _mustn't_ catch me down here."

A door opened overhead. A voice called over the balusters.

"Is that you, Herr Schmidt?"

"Yes, Miss McAlister, it is I. I stumble and make a noise. I beg pardon."

"It is granted. Good night, Herr Schmidt."

"You're a brick, Herr Schmidt," said Nell's pretty voice.

"A brick? A good fellow, is it?"

She nodded.

She stood in the light now, and he looked at her benignly.

"You are playing go-hide-and-find?" he suggested.

She shook her head.

"Hush! I'm waiting for my brother--to let him in. Aunt Kezia never dreams he could be so depraved as to be out after twenty-eight minutes past ten, so she has gone to bed with a serene mind."

He looked rather troubled.

"Your aunt is a worthy lady."

"The horse is a noble animal."

He peered at her through his spectacles in ludicrous bewilderment. Nell was half sitting on, half leaning against, the marble slab of the hall table. Her head was tilted back; the light caught the ends of her roughened hair and turned them into gold, and they made a sort of halo round her mischievous face.

"Well?" she said. "You're not shocked, are you? Why, he's seventeen, Herr Schmidt. And you know if they don't dine till--say--eight o'clock, he can't very well be in by half-past ten, now, can he? Isn't it very rude to rush away as soon as you've eaten all you want? I'm sure I've seen that it is--in a copy-book or somewhere."

"You will, perhaps, do me the great honour of waiting in my room, Fraeulein?" he asked, giving up the other question in despair.

"I can't, thanks. I want to hear him come, so that I can stop his knocking, you see."

"I will leaf my door open to gif you a little light, hein?"

"All right, thanks; you might, if you don't mind."

He stood looking down on her in obvious trouble.

"You will be angry if I tell you not to be naughty to your aunt?"

"Oh, no, I won't. It amuses me, Herr Schmidt."

He sighed, and retired to his room. In a few minutes he reappeared, beaming over his spectacles at her.

"See, I haf ze sweets. Young laties like ze sweets, hein?"

He was carrying a little crumpled paper bag with a few fruit drops in one corner. His simplicity touched her. She took two with a hearty "thank you."

"Oh, there he is!" She ran to the door and softly opened it.

"Whence this sepulchral--" Denis began cheerfully.

"Hush!"

He raised his eyebrows.

"Bad little boy to be out at eleven o'clock, eh?" he whispered.

"Be quiet, chatterbox!"

"Goot night," said Herr Schmidt.

"Eh?" Denis looked surprised. "I hadn't seen you."

"Herr Schmidt has been keeping me company while I waited for you, Denis."

"Has he? I say, are _you_ allowed to be out after half-past ten, Herr Schmidt?"

"I haf no one belonging to me to care," he said pathetically.

"We'd give him Aunt Kezia," suggested Denis, _sotto voce_.

They retired upstairs.

"I say, Nell, I'm beastly hungry," he declared.

"Greedy, didn't they give you a good dinner?"

"Rather! Lancaster did the thing in style. Old man's away. Lancaster seems to pretty well boss the show."

"Why are you hungry, then?"

"Well, I've been out since then." He looked at her with twinkling eyes. "Tearing around in a motor makes you hungry, I can tell you!"

"A--motor!"

He nodded.

"Jolly fine one, too. And at this time of night when all the squares are pretty well deserted it is fine."

"How many dogs did you run over?"

"Dozen or so."

"I'd just have thought he'd have a motor!" She couldn't have sounded more scornful if she had said a wheelbarrow.

"Well, can't you give me something to eat, anyhow?"

"The kitchen's unprotected. Let's try."

Downstairs they crept.

"Oh, more bolts!" groaned Nell.

In the kitchen Denis stumbled over the coal-box and sent the coal flying.

"Oh, Lor'--and I've got no matches! _Nell_!" flinging out and catching her as she stumbled forward.

She subsided on to the chair she had fallen against.

"Don't make such a row. Nell, there's a rat or something running up my leg!"

"Is--is it a _beetle_, do you think?"

"Very likely."

"Oh, Denis!" she drew her toes up on to the chair.

"Where do people keep matches, Nell?"

"I expect they're locked up!"

"_No_! Well, I can't go to bed on an empty--um--chest."

"Sleep on your back, then."

"Unfeeling twin! Dash it all, what a beastly hard chimney this is!"

"And what a soft head it came in contact with."

"You're helping a lot, aren't you? Sitting in the seat of the scoffer. Here, come out of that. You've got to help!"

"Denis! Oh, _do_ be quiet!"

He had seized her round the waist. "If you don't promise to help look for those matches, I'll roll you into the scullery where the black beetles live!"

"I promise, Denis!"

She came gingerly forward and gave a scream.

"_Denis_! I trod on something horrid and soft! Oh, Denis!"

"A rat, I expect. I thought I heard a squeak. Eureka! Got 'em! Now for the larder or pantry or storeroom or whatever it is--"

"I'm going to see what I trod on first. Light a match, Denis!"

He lit one and discovered her standing staring at the floor, her skirts gathered up. "Oh, 'twas an iron-holder!" she cried. "A dear, innocent little iron-holder!"

In the end they found half a loaf of bread and a pot with a little raspberry jam in it. Nell found the jam and was immensely proud of herself.

"By all that's wonderful, a hap'orth of jam in the bottom of a pot! Left out--unlocked--for the first thief to break in and steal!"

"Don't call nasty names. That'll do. I'll be a cripple soon--I've burnt all the tips of my fingers off already. Come along."

Upstairs he sat on his bed and munched bread and jam.

"He's got horses, Nell! One--a ripping chestnut--made me think of Acushla."

He picked a crumb off his knee and ate it thoughtfully.

Her lip curled.

"And he prefers a motor!" she ejaculated.

He did not heed her; he still looked thoughtful.

"But it's a gloomy house, somehow. I think London's a gloomy place. But he's got a room--his own--quite different. You'd go cracked over it. Crammed with carved wood things, Indian, Japanese--ivory, too. And a jolly Grand-- Hulloa, what's that?"

A sepulchral whisper came floating up the stairs.

"Are you children not in bed yet?"

He went out on to the landing.

"Just off, Aunt Kezia. Let me carry your candle for you."

"I can carry it myself, thank you. You ought to be in bed and asleep at this time of night."

"Me isn't s'eepy, auntie, weally," he lisped, and Miss Kezia almost relaxed into a smile.

"Nell," he said, returning to his room, "you're to go to bed at once--a baby like you!"

"Oh, oh, have you been talking to her like that?"

"Like what?"

"L-look in the glass!"

He looked and grinned.

"''Twas a grim and gory sight,'" he quoted. "'It hath a manly look which pleases me.'"

"A baby look, you mean. Babies always smear their cheeks with jam."

He was engaged in twisting his tongue out and round in a vain endeavour to catch the smear of jam.

"Nell," advancing his cheek, "lick it off for a chap. Pity to waste it."

She boxed his ear.

"Now I won't buy you a box of Fuller's chocolates!"

She sobered. She was discovering, to her amazement, that money, even when never spent in larger sums than a few shillings or even sixpences, had a mysterious and alarming way of dwindling.

"No more sweets, Denis!"

He went across to the wash-hand stand.

"I was going to buy you a three-shilling box of chocolates, and yet not make our fund a penny the poorer!"

"Is it a riddle?"

He nodded.

"Give it up. It's too late to solve riddles."

He was rubbing at his cheek with a sponge.

"I won it. I, even I, Denis, the twin of Nell, won it in a sweep-stake. Now see how businesslike I've grown, Nell. I pulled off six bob really, but it was a shilling to enter each time--that's two bob--and the time I lost, another, so I reckon I won three altogether. See?"

"What a beautifully easy way to get three shillings!"

"I might have lost two instead. Seems to me there's an idea somewhere there, Nell--work it on a bigger scale, and you'd have me turning those beggars out of Kilbrannan."

"But suppose you lost?"

"Oh, I shouldn't. Anyhow, I'd stand to win so much more than I'd lose. I'm going to think it out. There are places abroad."

"Denis, you'd get taken up! I remember dad reading about a case--"

"Not me," airily.

Nell punched his pillow thoughtfully. "I don't like it, Denis," she decided. "It's too risky, and--and--"

"Well?"

"I'm sure dad and mother would call it gambling! There, I feel like a goody little sister in a book."

He laughed.

"You don't look the character, anyway. And you're to go to bed."

"But--but you won't--"

"Oh, I may break the bank of England yet, who knows?" teasingly; "go to bed and dream of me, asthore."

"Is it nightmare you want me to have?"

"Race you to your room--in the dark!"

Two minutes later Miss Kezia's door opened once more. Dead silence greeted her. She went a few steps up the stairs. All doors were shut. Miss Kezia was sleepy, even more than she was cross. She went back to her bed.

As Nell laid her head on the pillow she muttered, "Of course it was that tiresome Lancaster!"

*CHAPTER VI*

Molly was huddled up on the hearth-rug, chin on knees, staring with her great soft eyes into the fire.

"Nell, do you think I'll be like the ugly duckling and grow pretty?"

"You're not ugly enough."

Molly sighed.

"I _wish_ my hair curled!"

"Molly," said Nell, flinging down her pencil in despair of seeing any longer without the lamp, "your soul is full of the vanities of life. 'Be good, sweet child, and let who will be--pretty.'"

"It's so easy for pretty people to talk like that!"

"I'm bowing, Mol, I really am--only it's so dark it's lost on you."

"I've a good mind to start saying 'prunes and prisms' all day long, my mouth's so huge!"

"But it's so Irish, asthore!"

"I hate you," said Molly.

Nell stuck her elbows on the table, and her chin into her hands, and studied in her mind the painting of the old cab horse. It was such a glorious painting--there was such depth--his muscles--the veins in that leg were wonderful--in her mind. She sighed.

"Nell," in the firelight Molly blushed, "I'm going to soften Aunt Kezia's heart!"

"What? Soften her heart, is it? You'll have to soften her head first, my dear."

She began to laugh softly.

"How are you going to set about it, Mol?"

"Like they do in books. Oh, Nell," Molly's romantic soul lent enthusiasm to her tone, "you know they always do! However hard and grim and horrid she is, the niece, or whoever comes and stays with her, gradually twines herself round her heart--"

"She must be an acrobat, then," put in Nell, sotto voce.

"And alters her whole nature. You see, I'll be awfully sweet and nice--I'll do things for her. They always pick up her handkerchief and fetch her spectacles and put down her shoes to warm when she's coming in with wet feet, and things like that. You needn't laugh, Nell! It's something to do--I'll try awfully hard. I think," Molly's pretty voice trembled, "I think mother would like it."

Nell jumped up.

"All right, only don't go and put your great, noodlish heart into it, Mol! For she's not the right material, old girl!"

"I like her awfully grim and hard at first," enthusiastically. "It's a pity I'm quite so frightened of her, though. I just can't help it--she makes me shiver in my shoes!"

"Nell," from a dim corner came Sheila Pat's voice, and a squeak as she moved.

"Where are you, Atom? Yes?"

"Nell," in very judicial tones, "is it very rude to ask a person not to talk goody?"

"Rather riling, I should say."

Silence.

"Shall we light up?" said Nell, lazily.

"Nell, is it very rude to ask a person if he's afraid?"

"More than rude, Sheila Pat, downright insulting!"

"Oh!"

Pause.

"But he wasn't an _Irish_ person," ingenuously.

"Was he English?" gravely.

"Yes."

"No one can say Englishmen are cowards, Sheila Pat. They don't understand us, but they're not cowards."

"Is it rude to ask a person if he likes his Catchykism better than cricket?"

"It's unkind, Sheila Pat."

Pause.

"Is it more unkind if he--if he is lame, Nell?"

"Miles worse. Downright mean."

After a long pause:

"May we have the lamp now? I wish to write a letter."

"Who to?" inquired Molly.

"To a 'quaintance."

Nell rose from the hearth-rug.

"Nell," the Atom pressed close and spoke in a loud whisper, "a person can't be _very_ goody-goo if he calls you a beast and throws a piece of cake at your nose, can he?"

"Good gracious!"

"Hush!" the Atom seized her arm, almost trembling with terror of her dignity being in danger. "I didn't say _my_ nose, Nell! Or _my_ beast!" incoherently.

"Of course not. Where are the matches?"

Sheila Pat took a long while over that letter. Her delicate little face downbent over the sheet of paper flushed and paled several times before it was done. Her heart and her dignity fought it out again and again. At last she evolved the following:--

"DEAR MISTER STUART

"this leter coms hopin you are wel i do not bare maliss and perhaps i was not very perlit which i regret bein a lady i hop. I therefore beg to apologise and will never menson the cak or the beest but i shud dye of rag if you tel anyone of that grate indignity with kind regards your very truly Miss Sheila Patricia Kathleen O'Brien i must be honourable and ad that this spelling is not qite all my one bein helped by Miss Eileen O'Brien."

She addressed it to "mister Stuart barclay essire," and going downstairs desired Sarah to take it next door.

Sarah was forbidden to leave the house without permission, but, in face of the Atom's tremendous weightiness, she fled.

Sheila Pat returned slowly to the Stronghold, her face weary with overmuch thought. Nell was surreptitiously studying a photograph of Acushla jumping a stone wall, with herself on her back. Denis had taken it with his Goetz camera. It had been a glorious morning in early spring. She remembered the vivid blue of the sky, the wonderful golden mist that had hung over the Ballymara hills, the feeling of utter fresh joy of life that had filled her and Acushla--

"Hulloa! How quiet we are!" Denis invaded the room with cheery breeziness. "Nell, rub noses! Mine's frozen. I say, the atmosphere's too exalted altogether for me."

"Perhaps we're doing penance," she laughed. "Denis," she broke off, "whatever have you got?"

He was swinging a large square hat box to and fro.

"Catch hold!"

He swung it across to her.

"It's for you, old girl."

"For me? Give me the scissors, Molly!"

Presently she pulled from a nest of tissue paper a great soft brown felt hat, with one long brown feather drooping on the brim.

"_Denis_! Oh, isn't it lovely!"

"Put it on."

She put it on, and turned to him, irresistibly pink and pretty.

"But 'tis _wicked_, Denis! And _why_ did you get it? And where--"

"It's lovely," exclaimed Molly, with a big sigh.

"Oh, I heard you talking to Molly about having to wear up a hat you hated with your brown suit--"

"I thought you were fathoms deep in your Latin!"

"Ah, but I wasn't. So I asked Lancaster if he could tell me of a decent hat shop, and he told me of one in Bond Street where his cousins go. You should have seen his face when I asked him whether he wasn't coming in with me! He never dreamt I was really going to get it. Don't see why, myself. 'It's full of Frenchified women!' he gasped. So it was. They were awfully sweet to me--tried on the hats, but, by Jove, what hats they were, Nell! I found this one myself. Now isn't it just the colour of your suit? Let me look at you."

He turned her round by her slim shoulders, and eyed her critically. She was adorable in it.

"I--I shall take it back, Denis. I suppose they'd give me back the money? How much was it?"

"Don't ask rude questions. And don't be a goose! They wouldn't think of taking it back."

"Oh!" her voice rose with an irrepressibly joyful lilt. "Are you sure?"

"Quite puffeckly sure. Don't I shop well, now?"

"But I _could_ have made the old one do!" Her dimples refused to be repressed. "Denis, what a dream that feather is! And the sweep of the brim--"

"Oh, stow it, Nell! Great Scott, spare me more! I've had enough of hat-jargon to last me a lifetime. 'So chaste, isn't it? So pure--so simple--but of an elegance so chic! A poem, Monsieur, an idyll--a three-volume novel! It expresses so much! Worn so--cocked over the right ear--it is gay, insouciante, of an impudence, Monsieur! So--down in front--demure, sweet, to suit the freshness of a young demoiselle--'"

"Denis, you're making it up!"

"Oh, well, that's the sort of stuff they talked--more or less. Wish old Lancaster had come in! He's gone off to meet his governor at Paddington."

"What does he _do_, Denis?"

"Who, the old man? Used to sell pigs or tallow candles or something."

His eyes twinkled.

"He made his money in something like that. I forget what it was. Believe it was lamp oil!"

"That accounts for it."

"Eh? Accounts for what?"

"Oh, everything," vaguely.

"What d'you mean, Nell?"

His tone was peremptory.

"Oh, I don't know," she hedged. "But I didn't mean his father, anyway. I meant _him_. What does he do, Denis?"

"Nothing, apparently."

"But why isn't he at school or college or somewhere?" her voice was scornful. "Do you mean to say he just hangs around all day, and does nothing?"

"Suppose so."

"Well!" said Nell.

"Suppose he knows his own business," suggested Denis, slamming his books down on to the table. "Hadn't you better put that hat away?"

Nell walked off with the hat.

"Of all the great, lazy _boobies_! And he dare--he _dare_ make Denis in a rage with _me_!"

"Nell!"

"Sheila Pat, I didn't see you. What are you doing?"

"Sarah told me that she always lengthened her skirts by _letting down_ the hem. What does it mean, Nell?"

Nell explained absently.

Sheila Pat looked thoughtful.

Nell went back to the Stronghold and bent over Denis's shoulder.

"Shall I dictate for you? Are you going to practise shorthand?"

"No," grumpily.

"Denis, asthore, the hat's _so_ lovely!"

He burst out laughing.

"You rank little duffer. Well, tell me why you were doing penance when I came in."

"We weren't. I merely suggested that _perhaps_ we were. I meant because we've done nothing all day but get into Aunt Kezia's black books. First," she ticked off the items on her fingers, "we heard a band playing--"

"Oh, Denis," interposed Molly, "it was playing 'The Girl I left behind Me.'"

"So we rushed out, as surely anyone with feet _would_ rush out to hear a band. It was at the corner and we rushed along and stood and listened--"

"And

"'By came a Flappyjack turning out her toes,
Forth she spurted anger like a garden hose.'

"Eh?"

"But the rest doesn't apply--

"'But the boys of Bally more had kissed the blarney stone,
Soon her anger melted--she sighed, Asthore! Ochone!'"

"Well, she sighed neither the one nor the other. Oh, she _was_ angry! No melting of her! Next," she ticked off another finger, "we conceived, or I believe _I_ conceived, the brilliant idea of an obstacle race on the garden walls. Oh, Denis, 'tis such fun! You see, the boughs of the trees next door and the summer house are the obstacles, and then when you try to pass each other, one is always bound to topple off. I'm bruised horribly, and Sheila Pat fell into the garden next door, and then of course Molly must needs roll off--"

"Into the dust-bin for a wager!"

"Of course; and the tin lid smashed in, and she went in after it, and _yelled_! And I laughed so I slipped all down the wall into the garden and scraped skin off everywhere. And Aunt Kezia came out!" She stopped with a vulgar but expressive little whistle.