After that Lawrence was left in peace, to sit by the delighted old soldier, who laughed till he was again ill, at the wild scenes which ensued; until the climax of Paddy on the floor, with a small table of bric-à-brac, and the coal box on top of her, with the coals flying in all directions, proved too much for him. When she at last scrambled to her feet, with a face Jack and Doreen Blake had surreptitiously smudged with coal dust, he had to be led away to his own den for a smoke, whither Lawrence accompanied him. “These Scrimmage Parties are too much for me now-a-days,” said the fine old warrior, sinking back into his big chair. “Lord! what a girl she is!—what a girl she is!” and there was a ring of delight and pride in his voice, which his gentle, beautiful daughter never inspired. “She informed me this morning she was not a girl,” remarked Lawrence. “She said she was neither a girl, nor a boy, she was Paddy!” The father chuckled in delight. “It’s about true, for there’s not her like anywhere. Begorra, lad!—if she’d been a boy—there’d not have been a soldier in the British army to touch her. But she’ll go far yet,” nodding his head sagely. “I’ll give any beautiful woman points in another two or three years, and back Paddy against her. While the other woman’s doing her hair, and arranging her dress, and thinking what to say, Paddy’ll be getting there. She won’t need to stop and think. She’ll be just herself, and if I’m not much mistaken, the men’ll go down before her like ninepins. O Lord!—and she’ll snap her fingers in their faces, and go rampaging on, like a real, thoroughbred Irish Fusilier. “But I shall not be there to see,” dropping his voice suddenly to a note of sadness. “Take my advice, Lawrence, and marry young. I married too late, and when everything is just at its best, I shall get my summons to go.” He shook his head mournfully, and sank for a moment into a reverie, seeing his heart’s darling, his boy that was a girl, queening it over an admiring throng, and he no longer at hand to rejoice. Lawrence commenced to chat with him of his travelling adventures, in his most engaging manner, to cheer him up; smiling inwardly a little at his estimate of the tom-boy, whom he could hardly conceive as yet, compelling anything but the indulgent fondness for an amusing child. A little later she broke in upon them herself, to say they were all going for a row on the Loch by starlight, to finish up with an impromptu open-air concert, with Ted Masterman’s banjo, and Kathleen’s guitar. They rose to follow her, and soon after the whole night seemed to ring with merry choruses from the two boats; a rowdy one containing Jack and Paddy, and a few other kindred spirits; and a quiet one with Lawrence and Eileen, little Miss Mary, and one or two other less boisterous members of the party.