About a week after the Dublin doctor's visit there dropped a new friend out of the clouds. I was with Aline one day, and she was snipping off withering roses into a basket from the bushes close to where Pierce was sitting. To us came the newest of our small handmaidens--for Oona keeps up an incessant change--in much trepidation, and holding a card between her finger and thumb. Aline took it, and looked at it in surprise. Then she walked up to Pierce. "Why, Pierce," she said, "here is old Lady O'Brien come home to Annagower, and come to make a call. I thought she was dead long ago." "So did I," said Pierce. "We used to call her the Fairy Godmother when we were small. I thought she was enormously old then." "She has been out of these parts a long time," said Aline. "But I must not keep her waiting. However, I shall have to wash my hands. Hilda dear, would you mind going in to the old lady till I can come? I wish Esther were not out, for Lady O'Brien is her godmother." "She has only gone to see Oona's cousin, Mary," said I, "and may come in at any minute." I found a very tiny old lady sitting in the biggest chair in the drawing-room. She had a foreign-looking big black hood pulled over her face, out of which twinkled her bright eyes, set in a delicate little old white face. "Well, my dear," she said, "which of the girls are you? and why didn't you come at once, instead of keeping me waiting?" "I am Hilda, Lady O'Brien, and I came as quickly as I could. But we were at the far end of the rose-garden with Pierce when your card came, and I can't walk very quickly. Aline will be here in a moment. She was gardening, and had to wash her hands." "Why can't you walk quickly?" snapped the old lady. "I am a little lame," I explained. "Now, how do you come to be that? Mary Brandon's children were born without blot or blemish. What mischief were you up to to lame yourself, child?" "We went to the races without leave, and fell into a ditch on the way home." "Indeed, then, you've been too much punished, for I've been doing things without leave all my life, and here I am with all my teeth and my eyesight, and my hair and complexion, at seventy years of age. But never mind," she added consolingly, "'tis only a pretty bit of a limp after all. Not so long ago it was fashionable to be a bit lame, because one sweet woman was so." At that moment Aline came in, and was called over to kiss the old ivory face in its black hood. "You're the image of your grandmother, my dear," said the old lady graciously; "and when we were both brides together we divided the county into factions about our beauty, though you wouldn't think it now to look at me. Eh, what?" "This exclamation was addressed to me. I had just said in a low voice that I could well believe the old lady's statement. I repeated the speech, to her delight. "Well done!" she cried. "You've a pair of eyes in your head, madam."