grown to appreciate the girl's talents, and was now genuinely fond of her, though it must be owned that her daughters occasionably grumbled, and that the real nieces were undisguisedly jealous. Bridget looked up now, with a sniff, as Elleney began with great haste to hand the eggs about the table. "You've been long enough over it, anyhow," she remarked. "Mary and me was wonderin' whether 'twas milkin' the cow ye were or bakin' the bread." "An' she hasn't brought the toast yet," grumbled Mary, drawing up her chair. "It's very near done," returned Elleney eagerly. "Pat Rooney said he'd have it ready by the time I come back." "Pat Rooney!" exclaimed the eight voices, in varying tones of amazement and disapproval; even Mrs. McNally's sounding forth a deep note of wondering concern. "Pat Rooney, child! What brings him into the house at this time o' th' mornin'? What brings him here at all to-day indeed?" "He come to fetch his pipe," explained Elleney, scarlet with confusion; "and when he seen me so run, an' so put about because I was a bit behind, he offered to stay an' help me. It's him that's makin' the toast." Juliana McNally, a frosty-faced person, no longer in her first youth, looked round with a scandalised face. "Did ye ever hear the like o' that?" she exclaimed. "Pat Rooney! The impident fellow! If I was you, m'mah, I'd walk him out o' the kitchen this very minute. Ye had no call to let him in at all, Elleney. Not one of us 'ud ever dream o' such a thing, would we, Henny?" "Indeed we would _not_," returned Henny or Henrietta as she was indifferently called in the family. "Cockin' him up that way. He had a right to know better, an' not go forgettin' himself and his place altogether." "Aye, indeed," chimed in Bridget. "Set him up! Him and his ould cart." "Then if it was nothin' but the cart that ailed him, Bridget," returned Juliana severely, "there wouldn't be much to complain of. I'll throuble ye not to be turnin' up your nose at the beautiful new cart me mother sent for all the way to Dublin. Ye paid pounds and pounds for that same cart, didn't ye, m'mah?" "To be sure I did," responded Mrs. McNally promptly. "There, now, don't be upsettin' yourselves, girls. Elleney didn't know any better, she's that innicent, poor little girl. She won't do it again, I'll engage--will ye, Elleney? Ye see, me dear," she added in a confidential undertone, "we do have to be very particular in an establishment like this. 'Twouldn't do for me at all to go lettin' a boy like Pat Rooney forget himself. He's a very decent boy, poor fellow, an' his mother--the Lord ha' mercy on her!--was a most respectable poor woman. But he must be kept in his place, me child, an' ye see--"