"You'd best come and play horses with us on the lawn," said Bridget and Norah, simultaneously. "No, I don't want to. You'll have that awful old man there." "Is it Mr. Flannigan you mean?" asked Bridget. "Why he's little better than a chick newly hatched--like the rest of us for that matter," she continued. "Are you all just newly hatched?" asked Margot, looking with great curiosity at the figures of her old young aunts. "To be sure, you've about said it," exclaimed Norah. "Well, I'm a great deal older than you," said Margot, "so I'll let you play with the newly hatched chicken and I'll go and see Phinias Maloney." "For the Lord's sake what does the child mean now?" exclaimed Madam, a little indignant colour flooding her cheeks. "I mean what I say," replied Margot. "He's a dear old man--he's not a gentleman, but I like him all the better on account of that, for he's got a gentleman's heart inside his skin. I'll go and see him now while grand-dad is asleep--that is, if you don't mind, Madam." "We'll all go, if it comes to that," said Norah. "Think of you picking up with Phinias Maloney, the roughest old farmer in the county." "But I don't want to go with you, I want to go alone," said Margot. "He and I are great friends, and I slept with my head on his shoulder all the way into Kerry. What are you laughing at? Why are you looking at me as you are doing?" "I'm fit to let out a screech," said Norah. "To think of one of the Desmonds falling asleep with her head on the shoulder of Phinias Maloney. It's enough to make a cat laugh, let alone a human being." "Then, please, Aunt Norah, laugh as much as you like while I am away," said Margot. "I must be back in time to sit with my grand-dad. I've a great deal to say to him and the time is short." "It's Sunday; you oughtn't to be thinking of your pleasures," said Eileen, who had a more refined voice than her sisters. "Mother, she can't go to see Phinias to-day, she really can't. Put on your pretty little white hat, pixie, and we'll take you to church." Margot was of course accustomed to going to church on Sunday and after a moment's hesitation, during which her little face looked very downcast, she agreed to Eileen's suggestion. "I'll go," she said, "on a condition--it's all my own." "And what's that?" asked Eileen. "It's that you walk on one side of me, and my young uncle Fergus on the other; then I'll know where I am, for you talk sense." Norah tried in vain to be offended, but as this was absolutely impossible to her nature and as Bridget was equally the soul of good humour, the little party started for the small village church a few minutes later, Margot looking very neat and even distinguished between her old young aunt and her old young uncle.