"Rafferty's awfully good to the dogs," said Phyl in her mellow voice, so well adapted for intercession. "He may be a bit careless, but he never does forget to feed the animals. He's got the chickens to look after, too, and then there's the beagles, he knows every dog in the pack and every dog knows him--oh, dear, what's the good of it all!" The thought of the beagles had brought up the vision of their master who would never hunt with them again. Her voice became tinged with melancholy and Hennessey changed the subject, taking his seat in one of the armchairs that stood on either side of the fireplace. He was a big, loosely-made man, an easy going man with a kind heart who would have come to financial disaster long ago only for his partner, Niven. "He's almost due to be here by now," said he, taking out his watch and looking at it, "unless the express from Dublin is late." "What'll he be like, do you think?" said Phyl. "There's no saying," replied Mr. Hennessey. "He's an American and I've never had much dealings with Americans except by letter. By all accounts they are sharp business men, but I daresay he is all right. The thing that gets me is his coming over. Americans don't go thousands of miles for nothing, but if it's after any hanky-panky business about the property, maybe he'll find Jack Hennessey as sharp as any American." "He's some sort of a relation of ours," said Phyl. "Father said he was a sort of cousin." "On your mother's side," said Hennessey. "Yes," said Phyl. Then, after a moment's pause, "D'you know I've often thought of all those people over there and wondered what they were like and how they lived--my mother's people. Father used to talk of them sometimes. He said they kept slaves." "That was in the old days," said Hennessey. "The slaves are all gone long ago. They used to have sugar plantations and suchlike, but the war stopped all that." "It's funny," said Phyl, "to think that my people kept slaves--my mother's people--Oh, if one could only see back, see all the people that have gone before one so long ago-- Don't you ever feel like that?" Mr. Hennessey never had; his forebears had been liquor dealers in Athlone and he was content to let them lie without a too close inquisition into the romances of their lives. "Mr. Hennessey," said Phyl, after a moment's silence, "suppose Father has left Mr. Pinckney all his money--what will become of me?" "The Lord only knows," said Hennessey; "but what's been putting such fancies in your head?" "I don't know," replied the girl. "I was just thinking. Of course he wouldn't do such a thing--It's your talking of the will the last time you were here set me on, I suppose, but I dreamed last night Mr. Pinckney came and he was an American with a beard like Uncle Sam in _Punch_ last week, and he said Father had made a will and left him everything--he'd left him me as well as everything else, and the dogs and all the servants and Kilgobbin--then I woke up."