“How strange that I don’t know your name!” says she, perplexed. “Did they review your novels in the newspapers?” “My dear,” says I, “the newspaper reviewers couldn’t understand ’em. Be kind to them for it. Ye can’t make a silk purse out a sow’s ear any more than ye can make black pearls out of lollypops. Could it be, Timothy McShanus would be driving his own motor-car and not rejuiced to the back seat of the omnibus. ’Tis a strange world with more wrong than right in it.” “You like my pearls, then?” she asked. I said they were almost worthy of her wearing them. “Papa bought them in Paris,” she ran on, as natural as could be. “They’re not black, you know, but bronze. I don’t care a bit about them myself—I like things that sparkle.” “Like your eyes,” cried I, searching for the truth in them. For sure, I could have laughed aloud just now at my friend Fabos’s tale of her. “Like your eyes when you were dancing a while back with a doctor of my acquaintance.” She flushed a hair’s-breadth, and turned her head away. “Oh, Dr. Fabos? Do you know him, then?” “We have been as brothers for a matter of ten short years.” “Is he killing people in London, did you say?” “No such honourable employment. He’s just a fine, honest, independent gentleman. Ye’ve nothing much richer in America, maybe. The man who says a word against him has got to answer Timothy McShanus. Let him make his peace with heaven before he does so.” She turned an arch gaze upon me, half-laughing at my words. “I believe he sent you here to say so,” cries she. “Indeed, an’ he did,” says I. “He’s anxious for your good opinion.” “Why, what should I know of him?” says she, and then, turning to stare after him, she cried, “There he is, talking to my father. I’m sure he knows we’re picking him to pieces.” “Pearls every one,” says I. “Oh, dad is calling me,” she exclaimed, breaking away upon the words and showing me as pretty an ankle, when she turned, as I am likely to behold out of Dublin. A minute afterwards, what should I see but the General and her walking off with my friend Fabos just as if they had known him all their lives. “And may the great god Bacchus, to say nothing of the little divinities who preside over the baked meats, may they forgive him!” I cried to Barry Henshaw and the rest of the seven. “He has gone without leaving us the money for our supper, and ’tis two and tenpence halfpenny that stands for all the capital I have in this mortal world.” We shook our heads in true sorrow, and buttoned our coats about us. In thirst we came, in thirst must we return. “And for a bit of a colleen that I could put in my pocket,” says I, as we tramped from the hall. But what the others said I will make no mention of, being a respecter of persons and of the King’s English—God bless him! CHAPTER II. IN WHICH HARRIET FABOS TELLS OF HER BROTHER’S RETURN TO DEEPDENE HALL IN SUFFOLK.