Meanwhile Mrs Adair added her thanks in a low, eager voice, asking anxiously after Paddy’s welfare; and Jack took stock of the stranger generally. When he had finished reassuring Mrs Adair concerning her daughter, and reasserting that he had really done nothing at all deserving of thanks, Ted returned Jack’s scrutiny with almost as great interest, wondering if this handsome young Irishman were Paddy’s brother. “Let me introduce you to _my_ eldest daughter,” said Mrs Adair. “Eileen, this is Mr Masterman from Dunluce.” Eileen shook hands with her usual charming smile, and then Mrs Adair introduced Jack, who, after a little further scrutiny, started on his favourite topics of shooting and sailing, and finding Ted as interested as himself, they quickly became good friends. “Your daughter called out something about returning in the morning,” Ted said to Mrs Adair, as he prepared to leave. “Some fishermen have been out for the boat this afternoon, so very likely she will return in it.” “Perhaps you will accompany her,” said Mrs Adair at once. “_We_ shall be delighted to see you to lunch if you will.” Ted thanked her and accepted the invitation gladly, then hurried back with various portions of Paddy’s belongings to Carlingford, hoping vaguely that she might have insisted upon getting up and coming down to dinner. Manlike, he had quite forgotten she could hardly appear without a dress, and he felt quite unreasonably disappointed when he found the table only laid for three, and he and his uncle and aunt sat down together. “I took the precaution of locking Paddy’s door,” Mrs Masterman remarked, as they sat down. “I know what a terror she is to manage, and after such a wetting it is most important that she should remain in bed for the rest of the day.” She had scarcely finished speaking when an apparition in the doorway, clothed in an assortment of odds and ends of borrowed garments, and with a face wreathed in smiles, remarked: “I wish roses hadn’t thorns. Coming down the spout was child’s play, but the beastly thorns on the rose creeper have quite spoilt my elegant hands.” Mrs Masterman’s arms went up in horror, but the depressed rescuer was instantly all smiles likewise, while he made room for her in his seat. “If you’d known me as well as my own father does,” Paddy replied to her hostess’ expostulations, “you’d as soon have thought of putting me down the well, as locking me in a ‘common or garden’ bedroom. There’s always a spout, or a coping, or a bow-window with leads, or something. How do you do, Colonel Masterman?” extending her hand graciously. “I couldn’t be expected to stay upstairs, with such delicious odours coming from the kitchen, could I now?” “Why, of course not, of course not,” exclaimed her host, who vied with her father in enjoying all her adventures; “you must be very hungry after such an adventure.” “I should just think I am—_ravenous_!”