She was digging a drawing pin through a mounted photograph of a beautiful Irish wolf hound. She touched his head softly with her finger before she turned away. He was Denis’s dog, and he had been left at Kilbrannan with friends. She picked up a photograph of her little chestnut mare. She stood with it in her hands, then turned suddenly and put it away in her drawer of the table. The hound was still Denis’s, but Acushla was sold—sold to the same friends who were taking care of the dog. Nell clinched her teeth. The other horses had been sold, too. She gathered up a pile of photographs taken by herself and Denis, and laid them in her drawer. For a minute the sick longing for them all, for her home, her father and mother, gripped her and held her silent. Then she turned to Molly. "Hark at Sheila Pat’s accent! Whose benefit is it for?" Molly looked out at the dingy scrap of garden. "There’s that little boy in the garden next door. Denis is chasing Sheila Pat." They reappeared in the Stronghold, the Atom’s wild little face emerging from beneath Denis’s arm, her legs and arms kicking and struggling. Denis seized the tablecloth, hauled it off with a clatter of falling lesson books, drawing board, pencils, and paint-box. "Hang on, Nell! We’ll toss her." Miss Kezia, entering the room unnoticed, was surprised to find her youngest niece bouncing in the air. "Aunt—Ke—" With a burst of terrified laughter Molly smothered the rest of the word. Denis and Nell, holding the tablecloth, with Sheila Pat enthroned in its middle, turned innocently to their aunt. "I came," said Miss Kezia, "to see if there had been any accident." "Won’t you sit down?" suggested Denis, with a wave of his disengaged hand toward a chair. "There’s been no accident at all. What made you think there had?" "The noise!" It was snapped out like the click of a box being shut. "Noise?" He looked surprised. Sheila Pat, tailor-wise in her tablecloth, regarded Miss Kezia thoughtfully. "May I ask," resumed her aunt, "if you are playing a game?" "Jolly good game," Denis agreed smilingly. "And it necessitates the smashing and throwing to the floor of—those?" pointing majestically. "And the ruining of the tablecloth?" "Not necessarily, Aunt Kezia; Sheila Pat’s only an Atom—I don’t expect she’ll tear the cloth." "You will not have another, in any case," Miss Kezia said. A little flush rose to Denis’s brow; his mouth shut into a thin line. Then he looked at Nell. "Nell, amn’t I right in understanding that this is _our_ cloth?" "Quite, Denis." "Have—" exclaimed Miss Kezia, suddenly, "have you been knocking nails into my walls?" "We’ll pull them out," said Nell coldly, "since you object to them." Miss Kezia actually smiled a grim little smile.