"May be, may be. Anyhow, it won't be Miss Sylvy, for she's just an imp of mischief, for all she has the face of an angel. The master calls her 'Boy.' 'I was lookin' for a boy,' says he, 'an' 'twas herself that come. But sure, after all,' says he, 'I'm not sure 'twas any mistake at all, at all.'" "And now, Mrs. Murphy," said Bridget, with a sudden return to authority, "I'd be obliged to you if it was your work you was gettin' about, an' not sittin' here idlin' all day. Stir your lazy bones, woman, an' be off to the master's studio, or 'tis never done 'twill be at all." "Well, indeed, ma'am," said Mrs. Murphy, with a justly aggrieved air. "Here I wouldn't be at all, exceptin' by your own invitation." [Illustration: "Gentlemen doesn't like clanin' times, Miss Flanagan."] Bridget hurried upstairs through the quiet house flooded with morning sunshine. Carrickmoyle stood on a plateau, and looked away over the bleached country and the summer-dark coppices. It was a square house, kindly of aspect, despite its ruinous condition, and around it lay a rich old garden, full of damask roses and such wealth of fruit as only come with years to a garden. An orchard, gnarled and overgrown, was down in the hollow. A delightful place it was to dream away a summer day, with no sound to break the stillness save only the moan of the wood-dove or the dropping of ripe fruit. As Bridget went upstairs she paused at a window. Below her, flitting here and there through the raspberry canes and currant bushes, she caught a glimpse of Sylvia's blue frock. "There she is, the lamb," muttered the old woman, her face softening. "There she is, wid that Mark Antony at her heels, helpin' himself to the raspberries, I'll be bound. An' she, pretty lamb! 'tis more she'll be atin' thin pickin', I'm thinkin'. But never mind, never mind, we can't be young but wance." In the room intended for the new pupil Mary Graydon, the eldest of the three girls, was sitting, puckering her forehead over a mass of muslin that overflowed her lap. "What are you in trouble about, Miss Mary?" asked Bridget. "I don't know how to cut this into curtains for the window at all, Bridget dear," said the sweetest, most plaintive voice; "it's so narrow and the window so wide." "What have you got at all, child? 'Tisn't your poor mamma's muslin slips?" "It is indeed, Bridget. They were only going to pieces where they were, and we can't afford curtains, and I'm sure if mamma was alive she'd tell me to 'take them.'" "Indeed, then, I'm sure she would, Miss Mary, for she was like yourself; she'd give the clothes off her back to anyone she thought wanted them worse. Give me the scissors, jewel, an' I'll just cut them out for you. I once got a prize in Major Healy's lady's sewin'-class for cuttin'-out when I was a girl; though you'd never believe it, to see the botch I made of the chair I was tryin' to mend."