‘By all means,’ said Kearney; while, to leave him more undisturbed, he turned to Nina, with some quizzical remark about her turn for the telegraph coming next. ‘What news would you wish it should bring you, Nina?’ asked he. ‘I scarcely know. I have so many things to wish for, I should be puzzled which to place first.’ ‘Should you like to be Queen of Greece?’ asked Kate. ‘First tell me if there is to be a King, and who is he?’ ‘Maybe it’s Mr. Daniel there, for I see he has gone off in a great hurry to say he accepts the crown.’ ‘What should you ask for, Kate,’ cried Nina, ‘if Fortune were civil enough to give you a chance?’ ‘Two days’ rain for my turnips,’ said Kate quickly. ‘I don’t remember wishing for anything so much in all my life.’ ‘Your turnips!’ cried Nina contemptuously. ‘Why not? If you were a queen, would you not have to think of those who depended on you for support and protection? And how should I forget my poor heifers and my calves--calves of very tender years some of them--and all with as great desire to fatten themselves as any of us have to do what will as probably lead to our destruction?’ ‘You’re not going to have the rain, anyhow,’ said Kearney; ‘and you’ll not be sorry, Nina, for you wanted a fine day to finish your sketch of Croghan Castle.’ ‘Oh! by the way, has old Bob recovered from his lameness yet, to be fit to be driven?’ ‘Ask Kitty there; she can tell you, perhaps.’ ‘Well, I don’t think I’d harness him yet. The smith has pinched him in the off fore-foot, and he goes tender still.’ ‘So do I when I go afoot, for I hate it,’ cried Nina; ‘and I want a day in the open air, and I want to finish my old Castle of Croghan--and last of all,’ whispered she in Kate’s ear, ‘I want to show my distinguished friend Mr. Walpole that the prospect of a visit from him does not induce me to keep the house. So that, from all the wants put together, I shall take an early breakfast, and start to-morrow for Cruhan--is not that the name of the little village in the bog?’ ‘That’s Miss Betty’s own townland--though I don’t know she’s much the richer of her tenants,’ said Kearney, laughing. ‘The oldest inhabitants never remember a rent-day.’ ‘What a happy set of people!’ ‘Just the reverse. You never saw misery till you saw them. There is not a cabin fit for a human being, nor is there one creature in the place with enough rags to cover him.’ ‘They were very civil as I drove through. I remember how a little basket had fallen out, and a girl followed me ten miles of the road to restore it,’ said Nina. ‘That they would; and if it were a purse of gold they ‘d have done the same,’ cried Kate. ‘Won’t you say that they’d shoot you for half a crown, though?’ said Kearney, ‘and that the worst “Whiteboys” of Ireland come out of the same village?’ ‘I do like a people so unlike all the rest of the world,’ cried Nina; ‘whose motives none can guess at, none forecast. I’ll go there to-morrow.’