It appears she cannot even spare her parish priest! Susan, who has risen, and who is now dragging Jacky from under the counter, where he has been in hot pursuit of a kitten, bids her old friend good-bye for the present. ‘You’ll tell Miss Barry about the clutch,’ says the spinster; and ‘Yes!’ shouts Susan into the terminus, a little louder than usual, perhaps, because Miss Ricketty lifts up her hand and shakes it at her reproachfully. ‘Wan would think I was deaf,’ says she tragically, whereupon both she and Susan laugh together. The girl’s happy mirth—seen if not heard—delights the old maid behind the counter. ‘Good-bye, me dear, an’ God bless you!’ says she, and, disdaining to even see Susan’s pennies, she thrusts a big parcel of sweets into Jacky’s small hands. ‘Keep a few for Masther Bonnie,’ whispers she, as she kisses him and sends him after his sister. At the door, however, Susan turns back, and once more calls down the trumpet: ‘You will contradict that thing about Mr. Haldane, won’t you?’ says she; ‘surely it is bad enough that he should have lost his front teeth, without having scandalous stories spread about him. Besides, they will make father very unhappy.’ ‘I’ll look afther him,’ says Miss Ricketty, ‘if only to oblige ye, me dear; though, I think, I’m not wantin’. Providence seems to have his eye on that young man.’ ‘Oh, poor man! I’m afraid not,’ says Susan; ‘he was ugly enough before, and now his front teeth are gone!’ ‘That’s it,’ says Miss Ricketty; ‘whin next ye look at him, ye’ll see what a fine openin’ the Lord has made for him.’ The last vision Susan has of Miss Ricketty shows her leaning back in her chair, with her apron over her bonnet, convulsed with joy at her own wit. CHAPTER VIII. ‘Nature often enshrines gallant and noble hearts in weak bosoms—oftenest, God bless her! in female breasts.’ Quite close to the gardens Susan meets one of the under-gardeners at Crosby Park. ‘I suppose Master Jacky and I can go in and see the gardens, Brown?’ ‘Oh yes, miss, o’ course. But I’m afraid there’s no one there. As it happens, no one’s working there to-day. ’Tis a holiday, you know, miss. An’ the gates are locked.’ It happens, indeed, to be a saint’s day, or holiday—one of the innumerable saints’ days that are held sacred in Ireland, and on which no man will work, if he is a Roman Catholic labourer, though the loss of the day’s hire is a severe strain upon his slender resources. And the funny part of this arrangement is that, though they are too religious to support their families by working on these days, they never know what saint’s day it is, or anything in the world about him—or her. ‘Oh!’ says Susan; she had forgotten about its being a holiday, though both the maids had gone to chapel in the morning, leaving her and Betty to make up the many beds. Her tone is so disappointed that Brown drags out a key from his trousers pocket.